LENSIDE, Pa. - As the commotion surrounding his 1976 drunk-driving arrest began to subside yesterday, George W. Bush began the final dash to the election with a promise to bring a ''fresh start'' to the presidency, while Al Gore voiced strong doubts about Bush's understanding of Social Security.
Neither candidate mentioned Bush's arrest in Kennebunkport, Maine, and several surveys suggested it had scant effect on a race that is still too close to call. In two polls, less than 10 percent of people surveyed said it would affect their vote.
But the issue of whether Bush lied about the matter did not disappear, instead injecting more vitriol into the already competitive campaign.
While Republican vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney used it to stir resentment against his opponents, enthusiastic Gore supporters in West Virginia shouted scattered taunts of ''drunk'' when Bush was mentioned, suggesting the incident had hardened positions on both sides.
Introducing Bush at a rally in suburban Detroit, Cheney continued to speculate that the story had been leaked by the Gore campaign, calling it ''typical last-minute acts of desperation from the opposition.''
''Frankly, I think we're all a little tired of the Clinton-Gore routine,'' Cheney said, prompting the crowd to erupt in chants of ''No more Gore, no more Gore!''
The Bush campaign had other distractions, as a Michigan labor leader mistakenly introduced Colin Powell as ''Adam Clayton Powell,'' the late Democratic congressman from Harlem. Powell, a retired four-star general who is often mentioned as a potential member of a Bush cabinet, looked pained.
But Powell quickly picked up the message of the campaign, telling supporters not to be ''distracted by the little sniping that comes in from the flanks.''
Such barbs from Bush surrogates were met with silence from the Gore campaign, as aides continued to hope the polls would turn in their direction.
Fearful of a backlash - but insistent that the vice president had no connection to the Maine lawyer who leaked the story - Gore spokesman Chris Lehane said it was ''really too early to tell what the fallout from the last two days will be.''
The controversy began Thursday, when a Maine TV reporter disclosed that Bush had been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol 24 years ago.
Bush has often admitted to having a drinking problem before he turned 40 in 1986, but had previously refused to confirm or deny that he was arrested for drunken driving. In one disputed instance, Bush told a Texas reporter he had not been arrested on any charges since his college days in the 1960s. News of his arrest raised questions about whether he misled the public, although Bush communications director Karen Hughes said he had been fully ''forthcoming.''
Yesterday offered the first opportunity to gauge whether the controversy would affect public opinion. According to an ABC News poll, 15 percent of voters felt the arrest made Bush less qualified to be president. Seven percent said it might make them less likely to vote for Bush, while 5 percent said the story made them more inclined to support him.
With no indication that the arrest was doing substantial damage to the Texas governor in the polls, the campaign returned to its state of high confidence. Buoyed by a cheering crowd waving pompoms and Bush-Cheney signs, the governor gave an abbreviated version of his stump speech and made broad promises to restore ''honor and dignity to the White House.''
''I think all of us ought to be held accountable for the decisions we make in life,'' Bush told several thousand gathered at an outdoor rally in Dearborn, Mich. ''The role of a leader is to set priorities, not trying to be all things to all people.'' Campaigning with him were a disparate group of supporters, from actress Bo Derek to ''Bikers for Bush.''
The mood was also brightened at a rally in suburban Philadelphia, where the crowd serenaded the candidate's wife, Laura Bush, on her 54th birthday.
With so little time left to attract the slim margin of undecided voters, Bush's schedule was mapped out to include key districts in swing states.
After a rally last night in Newark, the Texas governor was scheduled to fly to Florida for a full day of campaigning. Florida, a tossup state Republicans have long said Bush must win, has shown recent indications of leaning toward the vice president.
Several polls place him ahead of Bush, as do some polls in other crucial states, including Michigan.
That gave a dose of confidence to Gore, who began the final stretch of the campaign pleading for home-state support and attacking his rival's ''ingrained hostility'' toward government.
After receiving the endorsement of US Senator Robert C. Byrd, a revered figure in the battleground state of West Virginia, the vice president put a fresh spin on his criticism of a statement Bush made Thursday, when he criticized Democrats for treating Social Security ''like it's a federal program.''
''It's wasn't a slip of the tongue,'' Gore said at an airport rally also attended by West Virginia's other senator, Jay Rockefeller.
''It was an expression of ingrained hostility to our ability as Americans to work together to better ourselves through the instruments of self-government that our founders wrote in the Constitution, out of a preference on the other side for a dog-eat-dog, every-person-for-himself mentality that works fine for the very wealthy, but does not work very well always for those who are struggling to get by,'' the vice president said.
Earlier, in Memphis, Gore sought to break a deadlock in his native state with a personal message he hoped would resonate across the country.''You know me, you know my heart,'' the vice president told more than 1,000 people attending a prayer breakfast organized by black ministers.
Joining Gore on stage was Martin Luther King III, son of the slain civil rights leader.
''You don't care, actually, the facial expression I have, or whether I si-i-i-gh into the microphone,'' Gore said, saying the word with a sigh, a delivery he was criticized for during his first debate with Bush. ''I believe on Tuesday morning, before the sun rises, in congregations all across Memphis, you're going to be saying, `Wake up, it's time to take your souls to the polls.'''
King recalled the words of his father, who was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968. He once said that ''a voteless people is a powerless people, that our most important step that we can take is that short step to the ballot box.''
With a Bible on the podium, Gore, who briefly attended divinity school, quoted Scripture from memory.
His main point was that the unprecedented prosperity that has swept the country in the past eight years has not yet improved the standard of living for everyone. That, he said, argues against the $1.3 trillion tax cut that Bush has proposed and for the social ''investments'' Gore backs.
Gore capped his day with a get-out-the-vote rally at a black church in Pittsburgh, playing to his audience by criticizing Bush's pledge to appoint ''strict constructionists'' to the Supreme Court. Such a policy, he said, recalled the ''strictly constructed meaning that was applied when the Constitution was written - how some people [slaves] were considered three-fifths of a human being.''
At the end of the rally, Gore invited the audience to join him at a rally on the city's largely white south side. That triggered a motorcade led by Gore's limousine and trailed by buses toting reporters and church members.
In West Virginia, Byrd's endorsement was viewed as a boost because Bush has been campaigning hard in the usually staunchly Democratic state.
Gore aides said Byrd never endorsed President Clinton, whom he severly criticized in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He also withheld a formal endorsement of the vice president until yesterday, which coincidentally marked the day he became the second-longest serving senator in US history. The first is Strom Thurmond, Republican of South Carolina.
Kornblut reported from Pennsylvania, Johnson from West Virginia.
