ASHVILLE - ''Guns, gays, tobacco, and abortion.''
Ticking off the list, a member of Vice President Al Gore's inner circle says that those issues may have contributed to the Democratic nominee's yawning lead in places such as Massachusetts and New York, but that they are causing political problems for Gore in his home state of Tennessee.
Gore's support of gay rights, abortion rights, and handgun control, coupled with his attacks on the tobacco industry, have antagonized many voters in Tennessee, a conservative, tobacco-growing state with a Republican governor and two Republican US senators, the Gore adviser said.
Although recent polls have given Gore a slight lead here, he has been forced to defend his home ground vigorously, committing some of his limited resources to Tennessee and expending valuable time with appearances in the state over the past two days.
To boost his Tennessee effort, Gore was joined by his running mate, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, at a musical gala Tuesday night in Nashville. The event capped a day of fund-raising in which Gore collected more than $4 million from his followers in the state.
Yesterday, the members of the Democratic ticket discussed education at Tennessee State University before fanning out to separate appearances in west Tennessee.
At the same time, Governor George W. Bush of Texas, who faces no peril in his own state, led a raiding party into Tennessee on Tuesday, staging a rally in Knoxville, a city in the Smoky Mountains of east Tennessee, a region that has leaned toward Republicans for more than a century. Dick Cheney, the GOP vice presidential nominee, followed up with an appearance in a Memphis suburb yesterday.
''If we do our work,'' Bush said in Knoxville, ''then Tennessee is going to be Bush country.''
More than any Southern state, Tennessee has a history of Republican sentiment that can be traced to the Civil War, when significant portions of the population sided with Abraham Lincoln's party. In 1966, the state was one of the first to break the ranks of Southern Democrats in Congress by electing a Republican, Howard H. Baker Jr., to the Senate. In 1970, Tennessee voters ousted Gore's father, the late Albert Gore, from his Senate seat in favor of another Republican, Bill Brock.
Underscoring the volatile nature of politics in Tennessee, Democrats recaptured both Senate seats in the intervening years, only to lose them again. Republicans won the state's electoral votes in 1980, 1984, and 1988, but President Clinton, with Gore as his running mate, carried Tennessee in 1992 and 1996.
John Seigenthaler, former editor of the Nashville newspaper, The Tennessean, where Gore worked in the early 1970s, said it is not surprising that Gore is having a hard time this year. Republicans are entrenched in Tennessee, he said, ''and that makes it difficult.''
Seigenthaler said Gore had run an effective campaign, but that he needed to call upon another popular Democrat, former two-term Governor Ned McWherter, in the closing days. ''He's been helping behind the scene, but I'd like to see a more visible role for McWherter,'' he said.
Other Democrats say Gore's local popularity will lead to victory here. In his last statewide race for public office, Gore was reelected to the Senate in 1990, carrying every county in Tennessee.
''Al Gore has been to more than a thousand open meetings in the state,'' said Johnny Hayes, an insurance executive and a former director of the Tennessee Valley Authority, who serves as Gore's national finance chairman. Referring to a couple of small Tennessee communities, Hayes said, ''He knows where Centerville is. He knows where Difficult is. And they remember he was there, and that he cared about them.''
State Senator Tom Herron, the director of Gore's campaign in Tennessee, said that Bush ''will be able to outspend us here 2 or 3 to l - and that's if we're lucky. The Republicans have got enormous financial reserves.''
Herron spoke of other demographic difficulties for Gore. Not only does he have to contend with a traditional Republican base in east Tennessee, but he also must deal with growing Republican suburbs in Memphis - a city that was once a Democratic stronghold.
''But ultimately,'' Herron said, ''I don't think the people of Tennessee will let Bush buy this election from our native son.''
