OVER, N.H. - Just days after announcing he was retooling his campaign, Vice President Al Gore went to the first-in-the-nation primary state yesterday to reassure and rally his core supporters.
''Back from the dead!'' Gore could be heard bellowing to his troops in a private meeting, referring to recent stories calling him ''Dead VP Walking.''
''This campaign is rising!'' Gore said.
With polls showing him neck and neck with Bill Bradley, the former New Jersey senator, Gore is adopting a new, more intimate approach to winning New Hampshire in February 2000. Gone are the massive events with hundreds of people, campaign insiders said, and here to stay are the small talks and one-on-one visits with the voters.
''When he comes to New Hampshire, he's going to come as the candidate and not the vice president,'' said William H. Shaheen, the state chairman. ''He gets it now and he wants to do it.''
At the Dover campaign office yesterday, the room was packed and the people were spilling out onto the sidewalk, eager to hear what Gore had to say. Last Tuesday, he announced he was moving his campaign headquarters to Nashville, calling for a series of debates with Bradley, and jettisoning a number of high-priced Washington consultants.
''He said he's running as the underdog,'' said Mary Frost of Gilford. ''He said he didn't mind because that's more of a challenge.''
Frost said Gore also told everyone that he wouldn't say anything bad about Bradley as a person and that Bradley is his friend.
''If Bill Bradley voted for school vouchers, that's just a difference of opinion,'' according to Gore, Frost said.
Gore continued to compare himself last night to Harry S Truman, who pundits mistakenly believed would lose the presidential election to Thomas Dewey in 1948.
As the reality that Gore had publicly admitted his campaign is in trouble sunk in, reaction among the state's political activists was mixed.
James Monahan, a Democratic lobbyist in Concord who describes himself as ''a lost soul looking for a home,'' said he is impressed by Gore's changes and believes voters will give him a second look because of it.
''I admire the fact that he admitted that there was a problem and he was going to jump in and try to fix it,'' said Monahan. ''It's the first step in a 12-step program.''
Dayton Duncan, a Gore supporter, longtime Democratic operative, and the author of ''Grassroots,'' a book about the 1988 presidential primary, praised the new moves and said it's not too late for the vice president to turn around his campaign for the Democratic nomination.
''The voters are steadfastly concentrated on their kids' soccer games, the glorious fall foliage and listening to their furnace turn on in their basements, rather than deciding who they're going to vote for five months from now because they know that's something they won't have to decide for five more months,'' Duncan said.
But not everyone in the state is sanguine that a change of address from Washington to Nashville will help ease Gore's struggle here.
''He could walk around in his underwear, it's not going to make him any closer to the people,'' said David M. Carney, a Republican strategist who has worked for two disastrous campaigns - Bob Dole's in 1996, and former President Bush's in 1992.
''The problems they have they can't fix,'' said Carney. ''They caused this problem themselves because they drove everyone out of the race and they're stuck with a one-on-one race instead of a six-to-one race. ... They're making the Dole campaign and the Bush campaign of '92 look like they really had their act together.''
Mary Rauh, one of Bradley's chief supporters in the state, said she thinks it makes good sense for Gore to move his campaign to Nashville.
''He's very vulnerable to the inside-the-Beltway perception,'' Rauh said. ''People see him as an inside-the-Beltway guy.''
But Rauh said it is risky for Gore to look to Bradley for help resuscitating his campaign with a plethora of debates.
''Debates are useful for the voters, but they are not the be-all and end-all,'' she said, noting that Bradley would run his campaign on his own timetable. ''I know Bill Bradley is not afraid to debate Al Gore.''
Gore said last night that he did not expect Bradley to brush off his offer to debate.
''I'm a little surprised because I honestly expected Bill would accept the challenge. Instead, he has said no debates this year,'' Gore said. ''I think it's short-sighted not to accept. He's just putting off the inevitable.''
Whether the debates occur sooner or later, Democratic Chairman Kathy Sullivan said there's no way to know who will win the primary.
''Al Gore can win and Bill Bradley can win,'' Sullivan said. ''They can change two, three, four times before February.''
