POLL TRACKER President Who would you vote for if the election was being held today? Gore 46% Bush 40% Nader 5% Buchanan 2% Browne <1% Not sure 6% From a Reuters/Zogby International poll of 1,001 likely voters taken Sept. 4-6. Margin of error: +/- 3.2%. [ Story ]

Responding to reports of some national Republicans' worries after Gore's comeback in recent polls, he said, "That's Washington. That's the place where you find people getting ready to jump out of the foxholes before the first shot is fired."

Bush campaign officials liken the rising nervousness among party leaders to fears expressed last winter after Bush lost the New Hampshire primary to Sen. John McCain of Arizona. They suggest this current angst, too, will pass.

"When you get out here in Michigan or Ohio and Pennsylvania and you talk to the troops on the ground, they're excited and they want to win. They want to work, and that's who I feed off of," Bush said.

"I guess some of my supporters wanted it to be a runaway," he said. "The vice president is running a strong race, but so am I. I'm under no illusions and neither should our supporters be."

The Texas governor said he did plan to interact more with "real people," including holding more town hall meetings and "putting faces to policy."

"I'd like to be able to meet with people more often in less formal settings," he said.

Bush also appeared to suggest that the current impasse with rival Al Gore over presidential campaign debates might be broken. Although he said he still hoped Gore would show up next Tuesday for a special prime time debate on NBC's "Meet The Press," Bush for the first time did not rule out agreeing to the bipartisan commission debates supported by the vice president. "It'll be worked out. There are going to be debates," Bush said.

Spokeswoman Karen Hughes said the campaign was sensitive to criticism and advice from prominent Republicans in Washington. "We're listening," she said. "We know it's well-intentioned. Republicans want to win."

The decision to campaign in Florida next week -- a state once believed to be a sure-win for Bush, whose younger brother Jeb is governor -- was viewed by GOP officials as yet another sign of the race tightening.

Bush's current taunting of Gore on presidential debates -- both in a new television ad and in stump speeches -- was also angering some Republicans, said GOP officials.

While Bush's pre-emptive "agreement" last Sunday to participate in one formal debate and two on TV talk shows was initially cheered as a bold strike by Bush, his subsequent refusal to negotiate terms on other formats with Gore was viewed with increasing concern.

The debate on the debates "is irrelevant. It's not what voters care about," said GOP pollster Frank Luntz.

Still, Luntz said, "The level of interest in this campaign is shockingly low. The potential for comeback is incredibly high. You could easily see a tidal wave in the final hours."

Many national Republicans were getting increasingly worried about the recent turn in events.

"Everybody got cocky" after Bush's comfortable lead over Gore through most of the summer and a triumphant GOP convention, conceded veteran GOP operative Charles Black, a Bush campaign adviser.

Now the reality of a close race is sinking in, worrying many Republicans, Black said. But he said he thinks there's still plenty of time for Bush to regain lost ground.

As to concerns by Washington Republicans over the conduct of the Bush campaign -- still largely managed by a small group of Texas-based Bush loyalists -- the same concerns were voiced last February as Bush was struggling under the McCain challenge, Hughes suggested.

"I think the result will be the same. Governor Bush is very pleased with the leadership and the direction of his campaign," she said.

Bush's chief strategist, Karl Rove, had predicted all along that the race would draw even by early September.

"What Rove probably didn't expect was a Gore lead on Labor Day," said Thomas Mann, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Mann suggested that polls taken within the next few days are all-important as a measure of where the race stands.

"The past two weeks have been bad for him," said one top Republican not associated directly with the Bush campaign.

"His campaign has been slow to address problems," said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "He needs to somehow get the subject back to change, to character."

Stuart Rothenberg, a Washington-based political analyst, suggested that the Bush campaign had stumbled over both the issue of running mate Dick Cheney's finances and the presidential debates.

"It's possible to turn this around," Rothenberg said. "Bush needs to look confident and feel confident and somehow put Gore on the defensive, regain some momentum. But I don't think they can expect to do it overnight."