ASHINGTON - It was supposed to have been a time of gaiety and celebration. When the nation's Republican governors rallied around George W. Bush's campaign last year, they had hoped he would have the GOP presidential nomination wrapped up by this time.
But there was little gaiety, and no celebration, for the Republicans who gathered here yesterday for the National Governors' Association midwinter meeting. While they put up a brave front in public, in private the GOP governors shared their worries about the rise of Senator John McCain as a challenger to Bush, their friend and fellow governor.
''Panic? No. Concern? Yes. As there should be,'' a Republican Governors' Association official said.
''Do I think we will be talking about our problems when we talk with each other in our closed-door sessions? Absolutely,'' said Governor Michael Leavitt of Utah, who chairs the National Governors' Association this year. ''Will you have a lot of Republican governors offering suggestions? Yes.''
It was a weekend for Republicans throughout the country to take stock of the surprising turn of events in the presidential race. As the GOP governors gathered here, Senate Republicans flocked to a private retreat in rural Pennsylvania. And in Austin, Texas, the Bush campaign's officials and fund-raisers gathered to ponder their course of action.
Leavitt expressed confidence that Bush would eventually triumph. ''It yet will turn out the way we want it to,'' he said. ''If I were George Bush I would not for a minute want to trade places with John McCain.''
That outlook got some support yesterday from a new Time/CNN poll that showed Bush leading McCain 48 percent to 23 percent in California, which holds its primary March 7.
For their part, Democrats, were delighted at the way the Republican infighting is draining resources that could have been focused on the Democratic nominee.
''One never takes glee from the anguish and destruction of someone else,'' Governor Parris Glendening of Maryland, a Democrat, said with tongue in cheek, when asked about the predicament of his Republican colleagues.
But ''when you look at the other side and see ... what is going on. It can only help the Democrats,'' Glendening said.
The Republican governors and their aides expressed concerns about Bush having spent $60 million of a $70 million campaign treasury, including $2 million in a losing effort in McCain's home state of Arizona.
And several Republican leaders have worried aloud that the Bush campaign message - that he is a ''compassionate conservative'' who can unite folks of all kinds - has been muddied by the rough tactics his campaign used to defeat McCain in South Carolina.
It was ''stupid'' for Bush to give a speech at Bob Jones University, a South Carolina college whose officials have made anti-Catholic statements, Governor John Rowland of Connecticut, a Republican, told reporters.
Leavitt, of Utah, tried to put things in perspective. He is a Mormon, he said, and his religion has also been vilified at Bob Jones. But he said he would not tar Bush with guilt by association. A decision to speak at a college is not an endorsement of everything anyone connected to the college ever said, Leavitt argued.
There have been no defections by governors. McCain, who labeled the governors ''greedy'' when they called for the power to tax sales on the Internet, has cemented their loyalty to Bush, Leavitt said.
''It's troubling to have somebody say he doesn't care about the governors, and the governors are greedy,'' Leavitt said. ''John McCain is a respected war hero. But a reformer? He's been in Washington for 18 years.''
Thirteen of the 30 Republican governors showed up for a confrontational press conference in the afternoon.
Bush's main problem, Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas told reporters, was that ''he gets a size 13 shoe up his backside every day from the national press.''
On a less combative note, Huckabee said voters should consider the support of one's peers. He noted that when then-Senator Bob Dole ran for president in 1996, he was endorsed by most Republican senators. When Bush announced last year, he won the support of all but two or three of the GOP governors.
But, Huckabee added, ''there's a whole bunch of US senators who know John McCain, who have worked with John McCain, and joined us in supporting George W. Bush. That's a very important thing to remember.''
