or Democrats, this is a time of puzzlement and wonder. The economy is going great guns. Most people think the country is on the right track. Compared with 1992's torrent, there's barely a ripple of discontent abroad in the land.
Yet, in poll after poll, George W. Bush, the Republican nominee-to-be, bests Al Gore, his Democratic rival.
Compounding the confusion are the economic determinists who have peered deep into their multiple-regression analyses and declared the election decided. ''Statistical Al'' will not only win the White House, they say, he'll win it going away.
But if those mathematical models are a confident coronet playing a sprightly Democratic victory march, history sounds a less certain trumpet. Only four vice presidents - John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, and George H. W. Bush - have risen immediately from second-in-command to the top post absent the death (or resignation) of the president, and only Van Buren and Bush fit the example of a VP running to succeed a mentor.
The political disconnect Gore faces was on stunning display in a week when his campaign underwent yet another overhaul as US Commerce Secretary William Daley replaced the ailing (and domineering) Tony Coelho as campaign chairman. Even as Gore kicked off a campaign swing to highlight the Clinton administration's economic record, a Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that by 46 to 41 percent, respondents said Bush would be a better steward of the economy.
Which means Gore has a lot of persuading to do; while he sees himself as the heir to Clinton's economic credit, voters seem to view the VP more like the proverbial fly, who, perched atop the ox's horn, declares: ''That was easy, let's go plow another field.''
One problem for Gore, says CNN political analyst William Schneider, is that the current economic boom lacks an obvious cause. There has been no war as there was under FDR, no tax cut as there was under JFK, no combination of military buildup and tax reduction as there was under Reagan.
Yet if the economy is a political disconnect, it is hardly the only one. Look at five key determinants of a presidential vote and it becomes clear just how much Bush has succeeded in seizing the pre-convention advantage.
Leadership
The biggest reason Bush continues to outpoll Gore?
People see him as the stronger leader, says Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. ''That is the single most important attribute that drives voter support,'' Newhouse contends.
Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report, a nonpartisan political newsletter, concurs. ''I have always believed that leadership is a lot more important than what your position is on tax cuts or guns. I think it is the number one measure.''
The Post/ABC poll crystallizes Bush's advantage. By a margin of 65 to 30 percent, those polled called Bush a strong leader, while only 48 percent said the same of Gore, with almost as many - 45 percent - saying he was not.
There, Gore may be suffering the slings and arrows that come with the post. ''The vice president is by definition a shadow, and shadows never lead, whereas George W. has been the chief executive of a large state,'' says Stephen Hess, a senior fellow in governmental studies at the Brookings Institution.
Gore will have an opportunity to burnish his image as a leader when he emerges from Clinton's shadow and accepts his party's nomination at the August national convention in Los Angeles. But for now, award this crucial category to Bush.
Ability
One crucial test any potential president must pass in voters' minds is whether he or she is big enough for the job, a sizing up that appraises both experience and intelligence.
Voters rarely judge House members or mayors as fully qualified for the job, for example, while big-state senators and governors pass the experiential test almost without further questions.
As vice president and a certified policy wonk, Gore clearly holds an advantage here. Still, it's not a prohibitive one, for after several months of adroit campaigning, Bush has made some progress to counter his reputation as a bit of a lightweight.
''Gore is seen as more experienced, and thus the safer choice, though as we have now learned, Bush got grades at Yale that were [in some cases] higher than Gore's at Harvard, so Bush is not stupid,'' says Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Governmental Studies. ''But he does have his father's gene of sounding incoherent and being grammatically incorrect with appalling regularity.''
Give ability to Gore - but more narrowly than one might have expected only a few months ago.
Likability
Americans are fully capable of electing presidents they aren't particularly fond of. Exhibit A: Richard M. Nixon.
Still, as both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton demonstrate, if voters are naturally inclined to like a candidate, they are willing to overlook, or forgive, a multitude of sins. Which is a problem for Gore, who, more than Bush, has a personal style that too frequently comes across as patronizing and pedantic or apple-polishing and off-putting.
''It's the Dr. Fell syndrome,'' says Hess, offering a version of 17th-century English satirist Thomas Brown's stinging quatrain about the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. ''I do not like thee, Dr. Fell. Why it is, I cannot tell. ...''
Bush, meanwhile, may benefit from a time-tested electoral impulse, suggests Schneider: In picking the next president, voters often seek what was missing in the last one. Thus they opted for the youthful dynamism of JFK after the sleepy Eisenhower years, the order of Nixon after the chaos of Johnson, the morality of Carter after the mendacity of Nixon, the strength of Reagan after the shilly-shallying of Carter.
So what are they looking for this year?
Schneider's best hypothesis: ''After Clinton, people are tired of someone who is so totally political and are looking for someone who is not completely driven by politics.''
So, despite his oft-noted smirk, award likability to Bush, hands down. As far as Gore is concerned, that category is gone.
Trustworthiness
A president needn't be trusted to win, though it certainly helps: Clinton and Nixon are probably the only two chief executives in this century elected despite widespread public doubts about their character and probity.
As a vice president in prosperous times, campaigning on a platform of more of the same against a lightly accomplished governor of a weak-executive state, Gore should own this one.
Yet he doesn't. Bush scores every bit as well on this quality. That speaks in part to the residue from the Clinton scandals, in part to Gore's own missteps and evasions, from the Buddhist temple fund-raiser to ''no controlling legal authority'' to his I-drank-iced-tea-and-had-to-pee defense as to why he missed fund-raising specifics others in the same meeting heard, in part to his dizzying array of personal reinventions.
Finally, on the campaign trail, Gore has developed a Chicken Little problem by labeling everything Bush proposes as ''risky'' or ''reckless,'' charges that have now become self-parodic.
Bush, though plagued by some concerns that he remains a right-wing Texan, is buttressed by the nation's relatively good feelings about his family. Call trustworthiness a tie.
Issue positions
This is another category that should be a Gore strength, particularly since President Clinton reduced Democratic exposure on matters such as welfare and the budget. Concerns such as improving education, shoring up Social Security, reducing gun violence, and improving health care are all matters where the Democrats traditionally enjoy an advantage.
However, several recent surveys reveal that voters don't yet see a distinct Democratic advantage. Gore has a real advantage on health care and the environment, while Bush is seen as clearly superior on crime and taxes.
But on most other matters - the economy, education, Social Security and Medicare, and foreign affairs, for example - the two are so close it's a statistical tie.
''It should be a Gore advantage, but right now I would call it a draw,'' says Democratic consultant Mary Anne Marsh. In part, that's because voters aren't focused, in part, because Gore himself isn't focused, Marsh says. ''He hasn't been telling people who he is and why he should be president. Until very recently, he has been attacking Bush.''
Attack is a mode that has worked well for Gore in the past; during the primary season, he proved better at scaring voters off rival Bill Bradley's proposals than offering compelling ideas of his own. Yet the news that unexpectedly strong tax revenues will soon lead the federal government to revise its surplus figures upward once again may undermine a central Gore charge: that Bush's $1.3 trillion tax cut is too risky.
''It will take Vice President Gore's `risky' club away,'' says Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban League and former director of the Congressional Budget Office. ''If there are surpluses of $1.5 to $2 trillion anticipated over the next decade in the non-Social Security portion of the budget, there is clearly room for tax cuts and other initiatives.''
In sum, then, on the five most important considerations in choosing a president, Bush claims two, leadership and likability. Gore clearly leads in one: perception of ability. That leaves two areas - trust and issues - that are currently close enough to be tossups. The candidate who ultimately prevails in three of five is the one most likely to relocate to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue come January.
What does it mean? Fie on the mathematical models: 2000 seems destined to join 1916, 1960, 1968, and 1976 as a truly close election year, one where the campaign decides the outcome rather than merely reinforces underlying feelings.
Maybe it's time to start paying attention.
