ASHINGTON - Faced with a surprisingly strong challenge for the Democratic presidential nomination, Vice President Al Gore called yesterday for a series of debates against Bill Bradley, and announced that he would hold open meetings with voters in key primary states.
Gore also said he was moving his campaign headquarters ''lock, stock, and barrel'' from Washington to Nashville, a move that aides expect will save money while giving the campaign a folksier feel.
Beatty urges a liberal campaign, stays mum on own role. A20.
''This is a hard, tough fight. I'm going to fight my heart out for every single vote,'' Gore said, publicly acknowledging for the first time the seriousness of Bradley's threat. ''It's a brand-new campaign now,'' Gore said at a news conference. ''There are only two candidates. You've got Pepsi and Coke.''
Bradley, campaigning in California, indicated that he was open to debates against Gore. He said he had accepted ''a number of joint appearances already'' and would ''look forward to more.''
The former New Jersey senator also said he was not inclined to ''respond to every change in tactic by the vice president's campaign'' and added that he is also traveling around the country to hear voters' concerns.
Gore's campaign shake-up was an admission that he can no longer cruise along as the presumed nominee simply because he is the sitting vice president.
It is almost unheard of for a front-runner to challenge an opponent to debates because the leading candidate usually has little to gain from them. Gore's decision to move his national campaign headquarters south also appears to indicate how sensitive he is to being labeled a Washington insider.
''I'm taking the campaign to my roots,'' said Gore, who was born in Tennessee but was raised in Washington as the son of a US senator. Gore also has spent most of his adult life in Washington, first as a US representative, then as a senator and the vice president.
The move, which stunned his campaign office here, is also expected to save money. Not only will costs be lower in Tennessee, but only those workers most dedicated to Gore will endure the personal upheaval of moving. The current campaign has several high-paid consultants and contains too many people who are not totally committed to Gore's effort, critics of the campaign say.
Those willing to make the trip will be more focused on the recently tightened Democratic race and less susceptible to following Washington punditry at the expense of listening to real voters, staffers said.
''I think they probably want a leaner campaign,'' said a close to Gore who did not want to be named. ''I bet he just woke up and said, `How did it get so out of hand?'''
A campaign spokeswoman, Kiki Moore, said she did not know how many people would be staying, as staff members need to discuss the move with their families. One who will be making the trip is campaign director Tony Coelho.
''I will be packing my bags, learning country music, and moving to Nashville,'' Coelho, a former US representative from California, told reporters.
The new direction of the campaign is reminiscent of the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, when the candidates took bus trips and held town meetings with voters, running their campaign from Little Rock, Ark.
The announcement yesterday underscores Bradley's climb in the polls. Bradley, who trailed 23 percent to Gore's 68 percent in New Hampshire in May, now leads there 44 percent to 42 percent, said Andy Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. The two candidates have been reported to be running neck-and-neck in recent polls in New York state.
Bradley has been endorsed by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, who said Gore was unelectable against the Republican front-runner, George W. Bush.
A Brown University poll released yesterday showed Gore and Bradley in a dead heat in Rhode Island, with Gore leading by 37 percent to Bradley's 36 percent. But in a hypothetical matchup against Bush, Bradley did better, with 37 percent against Bush's 26 percent. Gore led Bush 34 percent to 32 percent.
Gore plans to spend at least six days in New Hampshire in October, while his wife, Tipper, will spend three days there, said the state campaign's spokesman, Doug Hattaway. ''It's a recognition that it's a tough campaign,'' Hattaway said.
The first time both candidates will appear together in New Hampshire will be on Oct. 27, at a forum sponsored by Dartmouth College.
Debates could tarnish both candidates if either attacks the other. But they could also assist Gore, who could establish himself as an individual candidate, instead of as the man in the wings during the Clinton administration.
Gore benefits from the booming economy but could suffer from the Clinton scandals. The so-called Clinton fatigue, or the perception that voters want change, could also hurt the vice president.
''The joke around the Bush campaign is that after Clinton leaves office, the whole country is going to want to take a collective shower. And Al Gore is the one who is going to be washed down the drain,'' said Mark Corallo, a House Republican staff member.
The polling numbers in New Hampshire buttress that theory, Smith said, noting that Gore is strongest among those who give Clinton high favorability ratings.
For all of his recent success, Bradley has an uphill fight if he is to persuade the Democratic Party to cast aside loyalty to its own vice president.
Both Republicans and Democrats have tended to give the nomination to sitting vice presidents who seek it. In only two cases during the 20th century, with Democrats John Nance Garner in 1940 and Alben William Barkley in 1952, have vice presidents been denied the nomination, and in both cases, neither candidate was taken seriously, said a presidential scholar, William Leuchtenberg of the University of North Carolina.
