The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said Tuesday that the boy's father should be allowed to take his son home "if the father says on free soil that he believes the son should go back to Cuba with him." But Gore also said a family court should be involved in the decision.

Likely GOP nominee George W. Bush's position seems clearer: The question should be decided in family court.

"My own personal judgment is I don't trust the Cubans to let this man make an informed decision," the Texas governor told reporters Tuesday. Asked if the boy's father should be allowed to stay in America permanently, Bush said, "Absolutely."

Politicians routinely say the boy's case should be above politics. But political scientist Susan MacManus of the University of South Florida says that's impossible on such an emotional issue in a state with 25 electoral votes.

"I think his basic motivation is protecting Florida for Democrats," MacManus said of Gore. The situation is politically trickier for him than for Bush, she said, for several reasons -- because Democrats have been losing their grip on Florida politics, because the administration would actually have a role in sending the boy back to Cuba and because Bush has been more consistent in his position.

The boy's Cuban-American relatives have suggested the boy's fate should be decided in family court or by a panel of psychologists, not by federal immigration officials.

However, almost two-thirds of Americans approve of the government's decision to send the boy back to Cuba to be with his father, according to a Gallup Poll released Tuesday. Just over half of those polled said the Clinton administration is making the decision on the boy based on what it feels is in the best interest of U.S. relations with Cuba.

Gore finds himself being asked, as he was on NBC's "Today" show Tuesday, whether he was pandering to voters in Florida when he split from the Clinton administration last week concerning legislation that would grant "permanent resident" status to the boy and his immediate family, allowing them to stay in this country while his case is decided in the courts.

Gore said his position hadn't actually changed.

His backing of legislation seeking permanent residency for the boy and his family brought protests from some Democratic lawmakers, worried about the feelings of immigrant populations outside Miami who might want the same thing.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas, a Democratic Cuban-American, said he thinks Gore is not taking that position for political reasons.

"Nationally, it will end up hurting him more than helping him," said Penelas. "Locally it won't help him because most Cuban-Americans vote Republican. I think he's speaking from the heart."

The vice president says he's been consistent for months, "that the father and his family should be given visas to come here and state what the father's wishes are."

But Gore also has consistently said the boy deserves due process in the courts, at the same time he has said the father's wishes for the boy, if stated freely in this country, should determine the case.

Gore said on Tuesday on "Lifetime," a cable channel aimed at women, that Elian's case should go to family court regardless of what the father says when he and his family come to the United States, although "the views of a surviving parent are very persuasive, of course."

Visas were issued in Havana Tuesday to the boy's father and immediate family, but it was unclear when the family would fly to this country or how they would be reunited with the boy.

Elian is viewed by many in Miami's Cuban-American community as a "miracle child" after his mother drowned trying to bring him to Florida and he was found on an inner tube in November.

President Clinton and Gore won Florida in 1996, the first time a Democratic ticket had done so in 20 years. Clinton got 40 percent of the Cuban-American vote, including many younger Cuban-Americans, in a bloc that has voted Republican for decades.

Another political element in Florida this year is the Senate race, where Bill Nelson is a strong Democratic running for the seat of retiring Republican Connie Mack. With Democrat Bob Graham holding the other seat, the U.S. Senate is a last refuge for Democrats in a state that has seen a GOP takeover in recent years, including the 1998 election of Gov. Jeb Bush, younger brother of the likely Republican presidential nominee.

"I think he's put himself between a rock and a hard place," said political analyst Stuart Rothenberg, who said Gore "risks adding to the impression that he is 100 percent pure-blood politician, who makes decisions based on political and electoral calculations."

"This may put him in play in Florida, but most Cuban-Americans in Florida will prefer someone named Bush."