espite intense media coverage, the Elian Gonzalez saga was not a real factor in this year's presidential campaign - until Vice President Al Gore made it one, to his detriment.
Most polls showed that the public wanted the 6-year-old boy, rescued in November from the sea in which his mother drowned on a perilous boat voyage from Cuba, returned to his father back home. Instead, Elian's distant relatives in Miami have laid claim to him to ''save'' him from life in a communist country.
They have been loudly backed by the 800,000-strong Cuban-American community in Florida, but most of the rest of the country did not join in on their behalf. Yet Gore, who has been virtually tied with Texas Governor George W. Bush in the national polls and appeared to be getting even stronger against his Republican rival, inexplicably waded into the volatile issue, siding with the Cuban-Americans.
When Gore said Elian and his immediate family should be granted permanent-resident status in the United States, he broke with both President Clinton and the administration's view that it is in the child's best interest to return him to his father.
Pundits promptly faulted Gore for ''pandering'' to Cuban-Americans to win votes.
Voters who look to Gore to continue Clinton's policies felt betrayed. Among them are many African-Americans, whose anger was given voice by US Representative Maxine Waters of California. She said that the only reason she could see for Gore's move was to win votes in a state in which George W. Bush (whose brother Jeb is Florida's governor) had an edge. Waters, a Democrat, said she was uncertain whether she could continue to support Gore's candidacy.
Gore's move could cost him votes. He now stands with many Cuban-Americans - who still may not vote for him in November. He has prompted a negative reaction from African-Americans, liberals, and other Clinton supporters who see him as more opportunistic than principled.
But that doesn't mean Democrats are going to rush to back Bush. More probable, they will simply stay home on election day. And that could hurt Gore's chances. In a close race, turnout will matter for Gore.
The difference between a 50 percent and a 70 percent turnout of black voters, for example, could spell the difference between victory and defeat in some states, and it could well determine the next president.
Unlike Gore, Bush has not been hurt by the Elian issue. From the start, he said he would prefer that the child remain in the United States. But that statement apparently was expected from Bush and was low-key enough not to generate controversy. Gore's action - going against Clinton and most of the president's, and his own, political base - was as unexpected as it was unwise.
Perhaps realizing his political mistake, Gore has tried to backpedal. He also has avoided talking about the issue, remaining silent about it on his recent trip to Florida to discuss the future of Social Security.
With a large number of elderly voters living in Florida, Gore might be hoping for their support, which Clinton got when he won Florida in 1996. Gore has now made that task more difficult.
And he might have lost some support in New York, where Hillary Rodham Clinton is running for the US Senate. It may be more difficult for Gore to campaign with her since she had earlier agreed with the president and US Attorney General Janet Reno that Elian should be reunited with his father in Cuba. That view seemed to resonate with New York voters.
With the help of her Republican rival, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who did himself no favors with his poor handling of two fatal police shootings of African-Americans - Clinton has pulled ahead in that race for the first time, according to the latest polls.
As the United States works its way toward returning Elian Gonzalez to Cuba with his father, Gore needs to work his way back into the embrace of his core supporters. He may need to call national meeting of key backers to acknowledge that he was briefly lost but now is found.
Gore cannot afford any more such mistakes. If he makes any, even the still popular Clinton might not be able to save him.
Gore can only hope that Bush makes a similar strategic gaffe during the campaign - one that will remind Democratic voters about the consequences of elevating the Texas governor to the presidency.
Robert A. Jordan is a Globe columnist.
