ITTSBURGH - Not two months ago, George W. Bush enjoyed such an unwavering lead in the polls that many Democrats had begun to give up hope, fearing that Al Gore could never shed the albatross of the vice presidency.
But with the election two months away, all the hand-wringing yesterday was found in GOP circles. New polls showed Gore even with or ahead of Bush, and senior Republicans expressed concerns that Bush's campaign is adrift, lacking a forceful message and frozen on the defensive by a series of campaign miscues.
Bush himself, resigned to a close contest - or perhaps, as some Democrats view it, hoping there will be one - called himself the underdog. And the Bush campaign, clearly shaken by the turn of events, admitted that it will have to retool its strategy.
To some Bush partisans, this is deja vu: The intra-party complaints about the tactics and direction of the campaign were almost identical to last February when Bush, the consensus choice of party leaders and fund-raisers, was badly bloodied by Senator John S. McCain in the New Hampshire primary.
Bush now is coming off two or three bad weeks, and his swoon in the polls may be fleeting and reflect little more than that. But some Democrats and Republicans believe the parity Gore has attained since his party's convention ended Aug. 13 was inevitable and rooted in a powerful political fact: Bush is asking voters to oust the Democrats from power at a time of almost unprecedented peace and prosperity.
Additionally, some Republican political strategists say Bush faces additional problems of his own making: Many of his stands on issues, especially his call for a $1.3 trillion tax cut, are not resonating with voters, according to two new polls. And, the strategists say, through a series of key errors - including his handling of the debate over presidential debates and the financial disclosures of his vice presidential running mate - Bush has shown a willingness to ignore outside advice, a characteristic that some Republicans believe could spell greater trouble.
''We've seen a lot of ups and downs in the polls,'' said Andy Kohut, executive director of the Pew Research Center for People and the Press, which tracks voter views. ''When they bounce around, I see it as a lack of voter conviction.''
But, Kohut said, if several polls expected to be released in the next week show Gore with a lead, ''then George Bush has something to worry about.''
Yesterday's poll numbers were enough to cause some Republicans to start worrying right away.
A Reuters/Zogby poll of 1,001 likely voters showed Gore leading Bush, 46 to 40 percent, with a margin of error of 3.2 percent. The poll, taken over three nights, also indicated a notable gender gap, with women favoring Gore by 21 points - nearly twice the margin by which men favor Bush.
A separate Washington Post-ABC News poll reflected a dead heat, with both candidates attracting 47 percent. But on issue after issue, those polled said they agreed more with Gore's position than with Bush's. And although the polls will most certainly shift again, the close numbers suggest the race has changed markedly since July, when Bush led by 8 points.
Additionally, Bush's firm grip on several key swing states, including Missouri and Pennsylvania, has slipped. Even in Florida, where his brother, Jeb, is governor, Bush no longer has an advantage but is waging a fierce fight.
Mark Mellman, one of the Democrats' most respected poll takers, has been saying for several months, even when Bush held wide leads in many polls, that the ''underlying dynamics'' of peace and prosperity would eventually draw the electorate back to the party in power, and to Gore. And other strategists agreed.
''This has always been a much tougher election for us than it may have looked from some of the earlier polls,'' said one senior Republican strategist consulted by the Bush campaign. ''The two major issues were always going to be peace and prosperity, and the country has both. It's hard to make the case for a change agent in those circumstances.''
Yet even if that were not the case, Bush has made some decisions that appear in retrospect to be blunders. He released two negative personal ads against Gore in the past week, making himself vulnerable to criticism that his call to ''change the tone in Washington'' was insincere.
His running mate, Dick Cheney, so far has failed to inspire crowds in the way that Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph I. Lieberman has. And Cheney has come under fire for a lucrative retirement package he received from Halliburton, the oil company he ran before quitting to join the ticket.
On top of everything else, Bush is still facing a basic problem he faced more than a year ago: convincing voters that he is a serious-minded candidate, rather than light on policy.
Gore has put him on the defensive, accusing Bush of failing to provide details of his prescription drug plan and ridiculing his tax cut. Bush has spent entire days responding to various attacks by Gore, somehow unable to get his own favored theme - education - into the headlines.
''The issue has always been: Would George Bush have the forensic ability to get his message out in the face of Gore's onslaughts and counterattacks?'' said one former strategist to President Reagan. ''The results so far do not inspire confidence in Bush.''
Challenges from Gore aside, Bush has been his own worst enemy at times. While Gore rooted his appeal in a detail-oriented agenda, Bush detoured away from his platform to contest the debate schedule. He launched a series of negative ads and highlighted the debate controversy in his stump speech.
''I cannot see what Al Gore did to explain this (polling lead),'' said one longtime Republican strategist who is no longer certain Bush will win. ''But I think Bush and the Republican Party have really failed because they have not been talking about the issues. Instead, this week, they have been debating the debate.''
The strategist continued: ''The voters are saying, `If I vote for him, what do I get?' And he's not answered that question. When he does that, he can turn this around.''
An effective performance in a national debate is one way to quickly change the tenor of a campaign. And yesterday, in the wake of much Republican hand-wringing and the new set of polls, Bush softened his stance on the debates for the first time, saying he was confident that he and Gore could ''work it out.''
While Bush seems likely to insist on his proposal of debates on CNN and NBC, it is possible that he might agree to do two commission debates instead of one, Bush advisers said. It's not known whether a commission debate would take place in Boston.
Asked whether he now felt he was the underdog, Bush said: ''Yeah, I am the underdog. Sure I am.'' It was a line Gore later mocked, citing the nearly $100 million in campaign funding that Bush has raised, but it suggested the tactic the Texas governor may now pursue.
