OS ANGELES - Not so long ago, when the presidential race started to make its way into the public consciousness, it was a foregone conclusion that Governor George W. Bush of Texas was the centrist in the race. His phrase ''compassionate conservative'' all but defined his fledgling candidacy. When he appealed to Latino voters as a ''uniter,'' he often did so in Spanish.
But recently, that foregone conclusion, like so many others about the Bush candidacy, has started to look premature.
Somewhere between New Hampshire and Michigan, in fact, a shift occurred - not necessarily in Bush's positions, which more or less have stayed the same, but in the public perception of where he lies on the political spectrum. Moderate Democrats have failed to turn out for Bush in droves. In New Hampshire and Michigan, Bush ceded large numbers of independent voters to his opponent, Senator John McCain of Arizona.
And yesterday, defending his viability as a candidate the day after his pummeling in the Michigan and Arizona primaries, Bush fell back on the group he has sworn to unite with others: the Republican base. At a news conference in Los Angeles, he predicted that he would win because ''Republicans are going to start deciding who the Republican nominee is going to be.''
Indeed, Bush has fared far better among Republicans than has his rival. And many believe that will be critical in making the Texas governor the nominee, especially since many upcoming contests do not allow Democrats to participate as Michigan's did.
But although it is routine for Republican primary candidates to pay special attention to the party's conservative base, many Bush supporters had not expected him to rely on Republicans this exclusively. They had hoped Bush, with his $70 million war chest, would focus mainly on courting voters away from the Democratic nominee even before the general election began. And so now, Bush finds himself under pressure to juggle two arguments: that he is the choice of conservative Republicans in the primary, and that he still will be the moderate ''uniter'' who will lure away just enough swing voters to win the general election next fall.
That, at least, was the dual message Bush sent yesterday.
He began the day by meeting with inner-city leaders to discuss faith-based organizations as alternatives to government programs. In a ''leadership forum'' at the Los Angeles Dream Center, Bush told participants: ''It's important for the people in America to see what can happen when you hear the universal call to love your neighbor.''
Minutes later, Bush was casting McCain as the more moderate of the two, mocking him for having the opposite problem of Bush's: the need to court Republicans.
''I find it amazing that somebody running for president feels like, on the Republican side, now all of the sudden they've got to start reaching out to Republicans,'' Bush said.
Later in the day, Bush appeared at a ''town hall'' on Spanish television. He then flew home to Austin, where today he will review the planned execution of Betty Lou Beets, a 62-year-old woman who was convicted of killing two of her five husbands but who says she was a victim of domestic violence. Bush yesterday left open the possibility of granting Beets an unusual 30-day reprieve, after deciding whether the jury had heard ''all the circumstances'' of the case.
Also yesterday, Bush showed perhaps his greatest sensitivity yet to McCain's success, declining to telephone his opponent to congratulate him on winning in Michigan and Arizona. When asked about it at a news conference, Bush said: ''Let me do this publicly now. I congratulate John on a race well run. He ran a good race.''
But the main focus yesterday was on the perception that he had somehow lost his claim as the ''uniting'' centrist in the Republican race. Bush faced further questions about his visit to Bob Jones University, the Greenville, S.C., school that bans interracial dating and whose founder has demonized the pope. He denied that his main criticism of McCain, his success with Democrats, might be the very thing promoting a McCain victory in a general election. McCain, too, took advantage of the shifting winds by issuing a news release with the headline: ''California Watching, Waiting for Bush Waffles: Texas Governor Expected to Lurch Left After Rightward Run in SC.''
Bush, however, repeated what he has said all along: His positions have not changed. It is McCain, he said, who has manipulated ideological labels to his advantage. In particular, Bush seemed outraged that McCain would identify with Ronald Reagan, saying his appeal with Democrats was not the same as Reagan's in 1980 and that McCain's plans were not ''Reaganesque.''
''It's not Reaganesque to discourage charitable giving,'' Bush said. ''It is not Reaganesque to support a tax plan that is Clinton in nature.''
Bush also trotted out his California state chairman, Gerry Parsky, to deny rumors that Nancy Reagan was planning to endorse McCain.
''She's remaining neutral in this primary,'' Parsky said yesterday. He had called her an hour earlier, just to make sure.
