OS ANGELES - These are frustrating times for the Gore campaign.
The economy is humming, unemployment is the lowest it's been in decades, and crime is down dramatically - just the environment, it would seem, that would benefit the vice president.
But Al Gore lags in the polls, and there is warm approval but little excitement from the mid-size crowds at Gore rallies and open meetings.
The throngs of people who waited hours in a town square or lined up along rural highways in 1992 to see Gore and then-candidate Bill Clinton on their campaign bus tour aren't showing up in the same strong numbers this year for Gore.
When Clinton and Gore spoke in downtown St. Louis at the end of their bus trip eight years ago, the crowds were so thick a latecomer could barely get a glimpse of the candidates.
But in the same venue this week, Gore supporters didn't even fill Kiener Plaza, a downtown square where Gore and his running mate, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, held an after-work rally.
''It's hot,'' explained one Gore supporter, fanning her face with a Gore-Lieberman sign. ''A lot of teachers are starting back next week'' and have to prepare their classrooms, suggested Cindy Loehrer, a teacher herself. University students aren't back yet from summer vacation, so they're not involved with the campaigns yet, added Jennifer Bers, a Washington University student.
Gore events are meticulously managed. For example, supporters at the St. Louis rally had to have tickets, and several complained they weren't told about the event early enough to tell friends to attend. Ralliers were not allowed to bring their own signs into the square.
Gore's open meetings on issues are also planned, with some individual questioners screened in advance by the campaign, which provides biographies of the questioners before Gore appears.
Even Gore's enemies don't seem that motivated. Gore rallies typically attract at most a dozen or so antiabortion demonstrators or supporters of Republican nominee George W. Bush.
''It is the politics of contentment,'' said Stephen Hess, a poltical analyst with the Brookings Institution in Washington. ''We get excited about elections when there's a war or the economy's bad.''
This is the challenge tonight, as Gore delivers his nomination acceptance speech: He will try to point out the policy differences that separate him from Bush, to define himself in a personal way, and to emphasize the importance of this election in guiding the nation's future, aides say.
''It will be a synthesis of his life experiences, both personal and public, and the issues that are at the core of the campaign,'' said Gore spokesman Chris Lehane.
The vice president is not likely to unveil any new policy proposals tonight, aides said. Instead, he will detail his plan for a middle-class tax cut, for helping senior citizens to buy prescription drugs, and for protecting Social Security and Medicare.
That approach is meant to contrast with the Republican National Convention, which was heavy on the general message of restoring character and integrity to the White House.
Gore's speech will be ''optimistic and forward-looking'' and is not likely to include brutal criticism of the Republicans, Lehane said.
Campaign aides insist they are not worried about the polls, which have shown Bush ahead by as many as 19 points this month, despite some polls that show a majority of the American public agrees with Gore on many key issues.
Gore aides attribute the public mood to the lack of interest in the campaign in general, and they say the two candidates will be in a dead heat by Labor Day, when Americans start tuning in to the contest.
''We could get 30,000 people here [in St. Louis] if we wanted to spend two weeks and $15,000 doing it,'' a Gore aide said. ''We decided not to do it that way.''
The strategy, the aide said, is to slowly build up Gore as a man of substance and ideas and to reach the public by holding smaller town meetings, focused on various campaign issues.
Gore is trying to get back some of the 1992 magic tomorrow, when he embarks on a four-day, four-state riverboat cruise down the Mississippi River.
The event is being planned by Hollywood producer Mort Engelberg, who helped develop the Clinton-Gore bus trip through middle America in 1992.
''We're going to hit the river running'' and introduce the real Gore to the nation's heartland, Lehane said.
''Vice presidents are historically famous, but not well-known,'' he said. ''Right now, people are agreeing with where Al Gore is. They just need to find out that fact.''
