ASHINGTON - Every day last week, George W. Bush's congressional liaison, Senator Paul Coverdell of Georgia, was tracked down by several of his colleagues with urgent requests. They pushed policy ideas, asked where Bush stood on an array of issues, and offered to work on the campaign.
''It is a fairly constant run, I'd have to say,'' Coverdell said.
The race for the nomination is over, but behind the scenes, the race for Bush's political soul is in full throttle. With more than seven months before Election Day, a significant part of the Bush agenda remains unclear. He has no broad-based health care plan, his education policy is still forming, and he is being squeezed on both sides of the abortion debate, which now focuses on Bush's vice presidential pick.
Moreover, as Bush and his aides sift through advice coming from everyone from senators to lobbyists to voters, it appears inevitable the campaign itself will be reshaped. While Bush's inner circle of loyal Texans has remained intact, the campaign is expected to hire some high-profile party stalwarts as well as some aides who worked for Bush's top challenger during the primaries, Senator John McCain.
For now, Bush campaign officials said, there is no reason to think there will be a repeat of what happened in his father's 1992 campaign, when James A. Baker III swooped in to usurp some top campaign duties for the general election. There is plenty of carping from McCain supporters about the way the Bush campaign was run, as well as criticism about the way the campaign so quickly spent its $70 million war chest. But campaign aides note that by Super Tuesday, March 7, the strategy worked.
Still, Bush's top strategist, Karl Rove, acknowledged: ''There will be an effort to broaden the team, deepen the experience.'' A number of top Republicans who earlier were unwilling to commit two years to the campaign now are angling for a top spot, perhaps with an eye on landing a job in a Bush administration.
But some Republican observers worry the Bush campaign may have drawn the wrong lesson from the victory over McCain.
''There is no sense of panic nor even of worry in the Bush camp,'' said William Kristol, who was chief of staff to former Vice President Dan Quayle and now edits the Weekly Standard and was supportive of McCain. ''They think they are in decent shape. But if they play the hand they have now, [Vice President Al] Gore wins. Bush needs to look like a different candidate in October than he looks now.''
Bush aides, while defending their primary effort, insisted they are not complacent. They said new speechwriters will be among Bush's first hires, noting that Bush plans a series of policy addresses in the coming months.
In an effort to placate the many people seeking to influence Bush on various issues, the campaign is setting up advisory boards and inviting people to visit the campaign in Austin. But for now, Bush's inner circle is notable for its absence of advisers who worked for his father and the inclusion of longtime loyalists from Texas.
The top troika consists of communications director Karen Hughes, campaign manager Joseph Allbaugh, and strategist Rove.
Hughes said the campaign has been running so fast on a primary schedule that it is only now beginning to sort out the general election strategy.
''I feel like I have been on this treadmill, I had a really good pace and suddenly I hit the emergency stop button,'' Hughes said, referring to the abrupt way Bush wrapped up the nomination. ''Then I realize there is another treadmill already going,'' she said about the general election campaign.
''We have met and we are going to meet more. The governor is thinking, I am thinking,'' she said. ''I set down what are the broad things we want to accomplish in communications. Karl is looking at what states we want to concentrate on. The process started last week. It goes from being a campaign to win the Republican nomination to win the general, and there are just big differences in that. We have been in a family feud. Now we are in a transformation.''
But the feud is not over. It is just being conducted at a quieter level. For example, within the GOP moderate bloc there is building pressure over whom the Texas governor picks as a running mate.
Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine is among those who believe Bush moved too far to the right during the primaries and now must move to the middle.
''He is running a huge risk if he doesn't do that,'' Snowe said. ''I can't imagine him not doing that.'' Picking a running mate who favors abortion rights would be an enormous step in that direction, she added.
Of course, just as moderates are pushing for a greater voice, some conservatives are concerned they will lose their clout as the campaign looks ahead to the general election. But a former top aide to President Bush's campaign advised the governor not to be distracted by such concerns.
''The internal pressure is unbelievable,'' said David Carney, the national field director for President Bush's 1992 campaign, recalling what happens in the transition between the primaries and the general election. ''It is more than the political carping from the graybeards who say `they need us.' The campaign has to try to go from micro-targeting voters in primary states to having a broader message.''
Carney said the 1992 Bush campaign failed to make that crucial transition smoothly and spent months trying to appeal to the conservative wing of the Republican Party. The mission of Bush's son should be to avoid repeating that mistake, Carney said.
''Governor Bush's people have done an excellent job of excommunicating all the people from the 1992 Bush campaign,'' said Carney, who was not affiliated with any campaign during the primaries. But Carney finds no reason for bitterness, hoping instead that Bush understands what went wrong in 1992. ''They have taken a page from our playbook, put it on the wall, and said, `Don't do this,''' he said.
Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition executive director who helped plot Bush's strategy for winning primaries with the support of religious conservatives, acknowledged there is concern that the media will focus on whether Bush's potential running mate supports abortion rights.
''I'm painfully aware of that,'' Reed said. But Reed said he shares Bush's belief that there shouldn't be a ''litmus test'' for a running mate, even if the issue is abortion. Reed stressed he is still ardently against abortion, saying he is confident he will like Bush's running mate.
Still, Reed clearly has switched to a general election mode, agreeing that Bush must appeal to the middle to win in the fall. But Reed said the governor doesn't need to reinvent himself to win the middle.
''All Governor Bush needs to appeal to centrist and ticket-splitting voters is to be himself,'' Reed said. ''He is a new and different kind of Republican. He can build bridges.''
