ASHVILLE - Vice President Al Gore has been crisscrossing the country in recent weeks, hailing the Clinton-Gore administration's handling of the vibrant economy and promising to continue to bring ''progress and prosperity'' to the nation if he is elected president.
Yesterday, as a new poll suggested the presidential race might be tightening, Gore ratcheted up that rhetoric and went on the attack. He accused the Texas governor of harming his own state's economy by allowing its surplus to shrink significantly over the last year. Bush, he said, could not be trusted with the economic future of the entire nation.
Using charts to illustrate his arguments, Gore said the Texas surplus had shrunk from $6.4 billion to about $350 million over the last year, and he blamed a tax cut Bush signed into law for the drop.
''The purpose of all this is to show you that the same thing he's done to the surplus in Texas would be done, and more, to the surplus we have in our nation,'' Gore said.
Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett said the current Texas surplus, which he put at $1.1 billion, was ''more than enough to address the state's needs.'' He, in turn, said the vice president was ill-equipped to steward the economy for the next four years since he, unlike Bush, ''had never developed or signed a budget.''
Gore said shortfalls in state funding for Medicaid and for prisons will force Texas to transfer $600 million this year from its surplus. Without the tax cut Bush signed into law, Gore said, the state's surplus would have been high enough to cater to those needs and to help improve the state's lagging record on children's welfare.
Bartlett countered that the Clinton-Gore administration had also dipped into its surplus. Gore, he said, had ''a credibility deficit, for attacking us for something his own administration does.''
Gore spokesman Chris Lehane scoffed at that argument. The difference between Bush's economy and the administration's economy was obvious, he said: Nationally, the surplus had only increased in recent years, whereas Bush was presiding over a decline.
Gore, who has previously said Bush was less qualified to be president because his duties as governor were so limited by Texas law, was asked how he can, at the same time, hold Bush responsible for the declining surplus in Texas.
Gore said that Bush, while short on constitutional authority, has had the power and platform to set priorities for his state and that instead of making children's health care and poverty high priorities, ''his priority was a special interest tax break.''
The budget fracas provided a stark contrast to Gore's other goal yesterday: rallying his troops. In visits to a group of Democratic National Committee state directors, and to his young campaign staff in their headquarters, Gore sought to inspire his supporters to fight for a cause that he described as bigger than all of them.
''I understand very well how hard the challenge is, and how hard the work is,'' Gore told the DNC state directors. ''I just wanted to say that this is really all about - it's not about me, and it's not about you ... it's about the people of this country.''
Meanwhile, a new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll showed the two candidates virtually tied among likely voters, 48 percent for Bush and 46 percent for Gore. Bush had led in the same poll in late June, but Gore has received gains among women and independents.
