ASHINGTON - As the race for the presidency has tightened in recent days, two decisions have been made behind closed doors at the Democratic National Committee that reveal much about Al Gore's final-month strategy.
First, after a seven-hour meeting last week, party officials decided to pour millions of dollars into an effort to encourage a record turnout of black voters in battleground states. The message, according to one participant, was: ''Whatever you need to increase the black turnout, we will find the money.''
Second, after tracking polls showed that Gore suddenly was losing ground in Florida, the committee decided to suspend advertising in some key states and buy $850,000 worth of ads in the Sunshine State. The decision sealed one of the biggest gambles in this campaign, with Gore going all out to win Florida while withholding resources from some other states where local Democrats had counted on a bigger effort.
These decisions are intricately connected: The Gore campaign wants to win some of the most competitive states, such as Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and has concluded that the best path to victory is to organize a black vote of historic proportions in those states.
The decisions also show how campaign strategy has changed in recent weeks. Not long ago, Gore campaign aides talked confidently about how they would put together a victory by winning states such as Kentucky and North Carolina. But Democratic officials said the party is spending no money on advertisements in those states, to the consternation of some local elected Democratic officials.
''It's tough if you don't put the resources in,'' said Senator John Edwards, the North Carolina Democrat who was a top contender to be Gore's running mate. Indeed, Edwards won his election partly because of a heavy black turnout, and he hoped the same kind of turnout would help Gore win the state.
Similarly, Governor Paul Patton of Kentucky, who still has high hopes that Gore will win his state, said in an interview that the party and campaign are spending little or no money there.
''We are hopeful that Gore will return personally to the state and devote more resources to it,'' Patton said. ''We still believe it is possible to win in Kentucky.''
While Patton stressed that he understands the Gore campaign is stretched thin, he said that he thinks Kentucky is especially winnable. That's because a high black turnout is expected, due to local ballot initiatives and the well-financed candidacy of a black woman for Congress.
Gore campaign officials said that they realize states such as North Carolina, Kentucky, and Georgia might be more competitive and winnable if they spent money there. But the officials said they cannot ignore the opportunity - and the expense - of running close to Bush in Florida.
''This was almost inconceivable'' a few months ago, Gore senior strategist Tad Devine said., noting that Bush's brother Jeb is governor of Florida.''
In any event, it is Devine, among others, who is playing a key role in focusing on black voters in those battleground states where Gore is spending heavily. Indeed, one of the main reasons that Florida is close is the black vote, Devine said.
In 1998, Devine worked as a media consultant for two successful campaigns that relied heavily on a strategy of boosting black voter turnout. In Maryland, Governor Parris Glendening was reelected by a narrow margin because the percentage of black voters among the electorate was doubled from four years earlier. Devine also worked on the Edwards race, which benefited from what Devine said was a record black turnout.
''African-American turnout will be one of the most important factors in this election as we try to coalesce a winning majority in this country, particularly in key battlegrounds,'' Devine said.
David Bositis, a specialist at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies who studies black voter turnout, said it is reasonable to expect that blacks will vote in record numbers where Gore needs them most.
''This happens to be a year when a large number of the most competitive states have a large black voting population, and that includes Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. If he gets a big black-turnout, the odds of him winning are very good.''
There is plenty of room for growth in black turnout. In 1996, white turnout was about 5 percentage points higher than black turnout, Bositis said. The goal of the Democratic Party is for blacks to vote in higher or equal numbers proportionately to whites, at least in the battleground states.
But the Gore campaign's effort to increase black voter turnout is much more narrowly targeted than some black leaders would like. For example, Representative Charles Rangel, the New York Democrat, said the Gore campaign is mostly spending money to encourage black turnout in a handful of the most competitive states, while paying little attention to states that Gore is likely to win, such as California or New York, or that Gore is likely to lose, such as Texas and many Southern and Western Mountain states.
''I don't feel comfortable when people in states are just being written off,'' Rangel said. ''This shouldn't just be money for the presidency; it should be for party-building and for states where local candidates are running. It is hard to look someone in the eye in Texas or somewhere else and tell them, `You don't matter.'''
But Rangel said he ''absolutely'' agreed with Gore campaign strategists who believe that focusing heavily on increasing black turnout in the most competitive states is the key to a Gore victory.
Another key for Gore is the support of labor unions. The AFL-CIO is spending $40 million to increase turnout, not counting many millions of dollars being spent separately by its affiliated unions. While the AFL-CIO is known for its ability to boost union turnout in key states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, the labor organization this year is focusing much more attention on increasing the turnout of minorities, whether or not they are union members. The reason behind this strategy is that the unions, which have mostly backed Gore, believe that minorities are more likely to help elect Gore, which is labor's ultimate goal.
''We are about the business of increasing the vote of all minorities, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Pacific Americans, all of those kinds of folks,'' said Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. ''There is a big effort on educating those kinds of folks, some of them union members, some of them not union members.'' The effort includes millions of dollars of radio advertisements and door-to-door distribution of leaflets.
Bush, too, is courting the minority vote, especially Hispanics, who have supported the governor in Texas much more strongly than they have backed the GOP nationally. The Republican Party recently began a $1 million advertising campaign on black-oriented radio stations. The ads say Bush's support for publicly financed private school vouchers would help minorities. Bush has said he would back vouchers for children at certain ''failed'' public schools.
Notably, the GOP ads deal directly with the fact that most blacks are Democrats. In one ad, a person says, ''Is that a Republican sticker on your car? Are you out of your mind driving with that thing?'' Another person in the ad responds that Republicans want to give parents more choice of where to send children to school.
But most analysts think that Gore will win the vast majority of the black vote and a majority of Hispanic votes as well.
While this focus on the black vote and the diversion of resources to states such as Florida have become key elements of the race, some of the strategy could shift in the final days, Gore aides said. In 1992 and 1996, the Clinton campaign had paid little attention to Kentucky until the final week. Clinton made stops in the state in the final days of both campaigns, and he won there narrowly both times. The same kind of shift could occur in the Gore campaign in states such as Kentucky, North Carolina, and Georgia, especially ''if the race opens up,'' Devine said.
