USTIN, Texas - George W. Bush, who has long relied on his personality to build support, has unleashed his most comprehensive critique of the policies of Al Gore, giving the surest sign to date the campaign is shifting gears.
Saying that this election offers voters a choice between ''two visions'' of America, Bush delivered an assault on the Gore platform in a speech televised to the California Republican Party. This week, Bush plans to spell out his criticisms of the Democratic nominee's policies in a series of television ads and campaign stops.
While Bush has recently signaled a shift in tone, the strategy is far more aggressive and detail-oriented than before - addressing, point by point, such issues as education, Social Security, and Medicare. Instead of challenging the vice president mainly on personality and trustworthiness, Bush is hoping that, by picking apart Gore's ideas, he can recapture some support that dwindled in recent weeks.
In yesterday's speech, Bush went so far as to claim the mantle of policy wonk. ''Now my opponent, after months of bitter attack politics, says he wants to talk about policy,'' the Texas governor said. ''He says he wants to talk about issues. And I am glad he wants to play on our turf.''
The declaration came almost exactly one month after the end of the Democratic Convention, when Gore began to gain an edge in national polls. Bush responded initially with an ad highlighting Gore's appearance at a Buddhist Temple fund-raiser, questioning his credibility - a theme that continued in his campaign appearances last week and is sure to last through the fall race.
But now, just seven weeks before the Nov. 7 election, Bush is deploying a more ideological tool with which to hammer the credibility issue home.
In a new television ad, called ''Compare,'' Bush casts Gore as an old-school liberal eager to exert federal control over schools and health care programs. On taxes, Bush accuses Gore of selectively choosing which taxpayers would be eligible for tax relief - another example, in Bush's view, that Gore is an entrenched politician unwilling to cede power.
In his campaign swing this week, through nine states holding 160 electoral votes, Bush will walk through the ''stages of life,'' beginning with childbirth tomorrow and ending with elder care on Saturday. The six-day trip, his longest in months, will again focus on the concrete pitfalls Bush has identified in the Gore plan - a radical change from the past few months, when Bush preferred to disparage the Gore platform in broad strokes, and from last week, when he discussed issues seemingly at random.
The first real glimpse of the new strategy was yesterday's speech, which Bush, at his ranch near Waco, delivered from a written text via satellite to California.
The Texas governor wove policies into a single tapestry, outlining more distinctly than before how starkly his views differ from those of his opponent. Although none of the concepts were new - indeed, Bush has been attempting to convey them for months - his oratory was peppered with new phrases, his sentences unusually concise.
Methodically, he ticked off the issues: taxes, the budget, Social Security, Medicare, education.
''On these issues, Mr. Gore and I will debate,'' he said. ''On these issues, the American people will decide. And that decision is not just between two candidates. It is between two visions.''
The Gore campaign dismissed the effort as too little, too late. ''Issues - what a concept,'' Doug Hattaway, a spokesman for Gore, said while reviewing an advance copy of the text.
But Gore aides did not argue with the premise. Indeed, Gore all along has cast the race as a battle between competing visions of government, a concept Bush embraced when he began dipping in the polls.
''Americans do have a choice in this election: to either keep our policies in place and build on them, or to return to the economic stagnation of the '80s and '90s,'' said Gore spokesman Chris Lehane. ''That is what George W. Bush is offering with his massive tax cut for the wealthy.''
But Bush, who has taken tremendous heat for his $1.3 trillion tax cut proposal, did not shy away from what is widely perceived as a politically dodgy proposal. Instead, he took on Gore's charges, giving specific examples of how middle class families would not benefit under the Gore plan.
''You may get a break on the marriage penalty - but not if you itemize your income tax form,'' Bush said of the Gore plan. ''You may get a break on transportation - but only if you drive around in a hybrid electric/gasoline engine vehicle.''
Addressing Social Security, Bush pitted his privatization option for younger workers against a savings plan proposed by Gore. ''Even a worker who chooses only the safest investment in the world - an inflation-adjusted US government bond - would still receive twice the rate of return of the current money in the Social Security trust,'' he said of his own plan.
On the issue of prescription drug costs - a pet topic for Gore, and one that Bush did not address until recently - the Texas governor targeted specific components of the vice president's Medicare proposal, which would provide prescription drug coverage for all seniors over the next decade. Suggesting the Gore plan is expensive and bureaucratic, Bush repeated his charge that it would force seniors ''to join a government HMO for drugs.''
Bush did not describe his own Medicare proposal in full. In particular, he omitted his commitment to overhauling the entire Medicare system to include more privatization, and did not explain that he would spend less money on it than Gore - one of many points the Gore campaign pounced on.
''It's nice that he's decided issues matter,'' Hattaway said. ''It would help if he were more factual about them.''
