USTIN, Texas - If George W. Bush is trying to lure skeptical voters who don't support him yet, that wasn't obvious from his campaign appearances last week.
At an event in Wisconsin on Thursday, Bush was pelted with questions - such as why Al Gore is always ''droning on about the richest getting the tax break.'' In Florida a few days later, Bush was asked whether he might treat guns like Social Security, ''protecting our Second Amendment rights and putting them in a lock box.''
In Ohio, a voter offered this as cross-examination: ''I think you're great. Can I have a hug?''
Bush has always drawn mainly Republican supporters to his events, and it was hardly unusual that they lobbed softball inquiries in his direction when he opened the floor for questions. But in the final weeks of the campaign, as Bush has spoken publicly about the need to appeal to independents, the overwhemingly feel-good atmosphere of his events has been striking - bearing little resemblance to the aggressive town hall meetings of the Republican primary.
Gone are the feisty audience members who once pestered Bush about unpleasant subjects such as his position on the death penalty or the Confederate flag.
Gone are the tough questions from truly undecided voters demanding to know the differences between the candidates.
Bush has practically abolished his once-frequent news conferences, replacing them with silent waves from the front of the campaign plane.
Instead, with just 28 days remaining until Election Day, the Texas governor is following a highly choreographed campaign that keeps him in the local television spotlight but avoids potentially challenging encounters with voters or news reporters.
''At this point in the game, they're afraid of bad TV,'' said professor Bruce Buchanan, a presidential specialist at the University of Texas in Austin. ''What they're really doing is creating visual images that will provide footage. They don't have any need to get in an argument with anybody that will end up on the nightly news.''
Since the debate, Gore also has appeared before largely safe groups. He has not taken questions at the rallies - attended mostly by union members - in Warren, Ohio; Grand Rapids, Mich.; and Orlando, Fl a.
Aides to Bush insist that his events are open to anyone, and that audience members are welcome to ask any question. Yet they concede that the open-floor sessions are of a highly friendly nature, and that attendees tend to be Republicans already supportive of the Texas governor.
''I think it's a sign of real enthusiasm for Governor Bush's campaign that a number of the thousands who attend our events are supporters,'' Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said. ''The strategy is twofold: to mobilize our supporters and to reach out to swing voters.''
At the same time, political strategists said it would be unrealistic to expect most swing voters to attend midday rallies in the modern work environment. Not since 1960 have candidates drawn huge crowds on a weekday, except when they include partisan supporters, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
''It's very hard to get large numbers of undecided voters to aggregate in open spaces, once you've moved to both mom and dad working,'' Jamieson said. ''You've got to get partisans, because they'll turn out for you. You can go somewhere and get a whole bunch of union workers to turn out for Gore, or get a fraternal order of police to turn out for Bush. It doesn't say anything bad about anything, except that we have more people who work and aren't able to take time off.''
Yet there appear to be larger forces at work in the Bush campaign, as he has traveled recently to mostly Republican areas of important swing states. During his trip to Wisconsin on Thursday, Bush flew into Appleton, a Republican-leaning town; a day later, he visited Royal Oak, Mich., a relatively conservative district outside Detroit that also happens to share a media market with Macomb County, a swing area.
The same was true Saturday, when Bush was met by thousands at an event outside Tampa, generally a Republican area. And at each stop it was clear the people were there to see their choice for president, not to inspect a possible contender, judging from the reaction upon Bush's arrival and the nature of the questions.
Some queries required genuine thought. In Wisconsin, Bush was asked to explain why he talks about the federal budget surplus in terms of its 10-year projection, rather than year by year. In Florida, a diabetic woman asked how he would approach funding medical research.
But even the most challenging questions were couched in friendly terms.
''You've got to remember, a big part of campaigning is driving the free media,'' said Scott Reed, the Republican strategist who ran former senator Bob Dole's presidential campaign in 1996. ''Going into a Republican area, having an enthusiastic crowd where you stay on message is more important than going door-to-door in swing districts. ... There's a method to this madness, and it works. What's important is to have a flawless event where there's enthusiasm about your candidate.''
