ERLIN, N.H. - Vice President Al Gore has a new role in the first primary state: underdog.
With four recent polls showing him in a statistical dead heat with Bill Bradley in the Democratic primary, Gore is beginning to acknowledge publicly that he has a dogfight on his hands, and has compared himself to former president Harry Truman, who was expected to lose to Thomas Dewey so many years ago.
''How many people remember the presidential race of 1948?'' Gore asked at the Coos County Democratic dinner this weekend. A smattering of hands were raised.
''You remember how far behind Harry Truman was? Thirty, 40 points. How the news media wrote him off? How he was expected to lose even though his position on the issues were ones people generally agreed with?
''So he gave them hell,'' Gore continued in an interview yesterday. ''He gave his opponents hell and went straight to the people and fought with every breath in his body and had the great satisfaction of holding up that newspaper headline that said, `Dewey defeats Truman.'''
Of course, Truman defeated Dewey, upsetting all the prognosticators. And clearly, Gore believes, his situation in the polls does not have to be permanent, based on Truman's own experience.
''But we've got to fight for it,'' Gore said at the Mount Washington Hotel on Saturday night. ''We've got to be willing to do our damnedest and give it everything we've got.''
The visit over the weekend to the North Country, Keene and Manchester also represents the beginning of a shift in strategy for the Gore campaign. Tension between the state office and the Washington headquarters has finally been resolved in favor of the state advisers. They want Gore to appear in more intimate settings, rather than in large, scripted productions. They hope to have him jump out of his Suburban more often, for surprise visits with voters, and they want to cut back on his appearances at the establishment Democratic Party events.
Yesterday morning, Gore visited a dozen residents of Berlin, the last working mill town in the state. At Lawrence and Elizabeth Kelly's wood-shingle home on Emery Street, the vice president and his wife, Tipper, sat on a blue-flowered sofa in the living room, with everyone else on chairs around them.
The topic of the day was economic development, an area of intense interest in a part of the state that has experienced the deepest depths of recession. Lawrence Kelly wanted to know if Gore sees a link between education and economic development.
Not surprisingly, he did. ''This is the key as more and more of our work is done with our minds,'' Gore said, explaining the importance of connecting schools to the Internet.
Several guests complained that high-speed Internet access is unavailable in their remote town of 12,000. That, in turn, prevents economic growth from happening, they said. What they were looking for, however, was tangible help from the vice president, rather than a distant promise from a potential president.
Gore said he would send a state-federal team of people to meet with representatives of the phone, cable, and satellite companies. ''Let's figure out a solution to this,'' he said.
He also reassured Ed Mears, a millwright at the Pulp and Paper of America, that Gore would try to help the company meet its ''cluster rule'' requirements for reducing pollution in the air and water.
''We need help to stay alive,'' said Mears, who is also a state representative from Berlin. ''If there would be assistance in that regard, you'd gain tremendous momentum in the North Country.''
On jobs and the environment, Gore repeatedly told people that he is for ''mixed use'' of the land, preserving the natural beauty while allowing logging and other work to continue simultaneously. He said he was for ''practical'' and ''balanced'' approaches to the environment.
Mears later said that Gore's book, ''Earth in the Balance,'' and his reputation as an environmental leader, have been problematic in an area where many people make their living from logging and related businesses. ''In this neck of the woods,'' Gore's reputation ''is not considered to be worker friendly,'' he said.
But after listening to the vice president, Mears said he was convinced that Gore is not out to kill industry. ''He has every intention of keeping the economy strong,'' he said.
Besides trying to convince voters one-on-one and in small groups that he has the goods to be the Democratic nominee, the Gore campaign began a canvassing drive this weekend passing out a brochure about Gore's plans to improve education, fix the health care system, toughen gun-control laws and strengthen Social Security. About 200 volunteers knocked on doors in Claremont, Keene and Manchester, and there are plans to reach 50,000 homes by mid-October.
The Bradley campaign, by contrast, began canvassing the state in August, and has continued every weekend since, raising the former senator's profile as the race shifts into a higher gear for autumn.
Besides the literature drops and the smaller campaign venues, Gore told his audience Saturday night that he's been underestimated before, and he doesn't mind being underestimated again.
''I ran for Congress in 1976,'' he said, as his wife sat listening. ''I was expected to finish seventh in a nine-person race. And Tipper and I beat them with shoe leather. We got out and shook hands with everybody.
''And we know how to do that,'' he said.
