LOS ANGELESThis is not only fragile; it could also be fleeting. But it is real. Vice President Al Gore has succeeded in changing the chemistry of the race - not just a few polling numbers that have pulled him even in his general election tussle with George W. Bush.
Now that the images of his run down the Mississippi with Joe Lieberman and their spouses are surprising even the people who planned the excursion, it is clear that Gore has managed to pull off a rare feat in presidential politics - turning a four-day event into a two-week national convention that has given him major boosts going into as well as coming out of the four days in Los Angeles.
It hasn't happened on this scale since Gore and Bill Clinton pulled it off eight years ago with a major assist from Ross Perot. But the accomplishment deserves more praise because it was much more difficult, more on the scale of the work Bush's dad did in New Orleans 12 years ago, struggling up the hill that all sitting vice presidents must scale.
By contrast, what happened in Philadelphia was fleeting.
Governor Bush reassured people by selecting a veteran conservative operative as his running mate, and he put on a vintage infomercial convention. The result was a bounce in the polling data but not in any underlying perceptions about Bush the person or Bush the potential president.
This kind of bounce usually ends quickly.
The check list of achievements for Gore was formidable, containing far more than positive reviews of his acceptance speech. His defining decision on a running mate made a difference, as did an initially favorable impression of the choice; the sitting president at last stepped aside, however reluctantly; the party could be seen coalescing behind Gore; and the images and messages in the days that followed his acceptance speech served as exclamation points.
Enough of Lieberman, already. Same for Bill Clinton, the speech, and the Mississippi River. The element of Gore's convention that has received the least attention is the Democratic Party itself.
From all my jottings, none stands out more than a line delivered in a downtown hotel about a mile from the convention itself by an impeccably credentialed liberal, Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota.
''The differences,'' Wellstone said, referring to Bush and Gore on the major issues, ''make a difference.''
Remember, this is a guy who was there early for Bill Bradley and who disagrees on many major questions - from missile defense to health care - with Al Gore. Away from the convention hall, Wellstone and scores of other liberals - John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO, Representative Maxine Waters and other Black Caucus stalwarts, and Bob Chase and Sandy Feldman of the teachers unions - were plugging for Gore even as they pressed their own agendas.
It was, in other words, a lousy week for Ralph Nader, most of whose Green Party supporters abandoned the policy forums around town for the message-challenged rabble in the streets. Nader, arguing that the Bush-Gore differences don't make a difference, is getting bested by liberals on the merits (abortion rights, gay rights, health care, education, and the environment), leaving him with his petulant superiority and spirited defense of his MasterCard ripoff of a TV commercial.
People forget, but Gore's support from the party's liberal core has some history, notably the decision by Senator Edward Kennedy to support him over Bradley at the beginning of this year. From that moment on, Bradley was never able to expand his appeal beyond higher-income, relatively independent primary voters.
Americans who watched the convention could also see the results from the podium last week. Unlike Philadelphia, where the conservative Republicans' core was confined to hotels, Democratic liberals were featured speakers. The roster included not just Kennedy and his niece, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, making a connection to the convention that nominated John Kennedy here 40 years ago; it also included Jesse Jackson and civil rights hero and Representative John Lewis of Georgia, who nominated and vouched for Lieberman.
What was stunning was not so much their appearances but the fact they were all delivering the essence of the Gore campaign message. No matter who it was, every speech had some version of the argument that the government's surplus could either be ''squandered'' on tax cuts benefiting the wealthy or invested in priorities important to working families.
These are not people who have put their own agendas on hold. Wellstone, for example, has begun pushing hard for a universal health insurance proposal that would cost $700 billion in subsidies over the next decade. It would require universal coverage under national standards but leave the actual mechanisms to the states.
Representative Barney Frank, who is moving ahead under House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt with a fresh approach to the divisive issue of trade, told me during the convention that he wishes the First Amendment could itself be amended to make it illegal to argue that idealism and pragmatism are contradictory.
The convention here - meaning its full scope from Lieberman to the Mississippi - gave Gore for now the same high level of support from his own universe that Bush was getting from his.
That was enough to knot up the race. But Gore's focus on working families is an attempt to take things beyond that. For a few days it has worked, but this public impression remains both new and fragile.
Thomas Oliphant is a Globe columnist.
