ASHINGTON - Senator John Breaux, the Louisiana Democrat, is a key supporter of Vice President Al Gore. But Breaux and some other moderate Democrats are growing increasingly concerned that Gore has declined to embrace their views on Social Security reform, Medicare, and other major issues, while George W. Bush has been more supportive.
Breaux's concern shines a spotlight on a little-noticed but growing rift between Gore and some members of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council, a group that Gore helped create. The rift centers on what many believe will be the decisive factor of Campaign 2000: the candidates' ability to attract support from the vast middle of the electorate that is undecided about the race.
''It seems Bush has tried to articulate the ideas on Medicare, Social Security and education that the DLC has put out,'' said Breaux, a member and former chairman of the council.
Breaux said he fears Gore could lose the presidential election if he ''can't somehow embrace these concepts. These ideas are going to be the ideas that affect the outcome of the election.''
The ideas promoted by the leadership council include a proposal by Breaux and Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska to partially privatize Social Security, which has been backed in concept by Bush, but which Gore this week called a ''risky scheme.'' Similarly, Gore has so far declined to embrace the leadership council's proposal on Medicare and parts of an education program. Bush, meanwhile, has viewed all of those measures favorably.
During the primaries, Gore wasn't nearly as concerned about the so-called New Democrat agenda because he was locked in a fight for more liberal voters against former senator Bill Bradley.
Now moderates are concerned that Gore is reflexively rejecting ideas that are designed to appeal specifically to the wavering center of the American voting public.
To the dismay of some leadership council leaders, Bush has become a bigger proponent than Gore of parts of the group's agenda. ''My take on it is that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,'' Breaux said. Asked whether Gore should back some the measures, he replied, ''It depends on how much he wants to be president.''
Kerrey, who met last week with Bush to discuss his Social Security proposal, said that Gore has been too quick to dismiss the plan, which would allow younger workers to put a percentage of Social Security taxes into private investment accounts. Bush has backed the Kerrey concept but so far has not made his own proposal.
''In spite of the political rhetoric'' by Gore, ''this is the progressive approach,'' Kerrey said. ''It would be irresponsible not to do it.''
The New Democrats said they are still inclined to back Gore because he is in tune with them on a greater number of issues than Bush. But they stressed that they got involved with organizations such as the Democratic Leadership Council because they believe the party has been too solicitous of its liberal wing and cannot win presidential elections unless it moves more dramatically to the middle. The DLC played a major role in providing ideas that were adopted by Bill Clinton and Gore in the 1992 and 1996 presidential election campaigns.
Gore spokesman Doug Hattaway, while acknowledging that the vice president has not signed on to some of the DLC's proposals, said that Gore supports the organization's central goal.
''The DLC's fundamental issue is and has been fiscal responsibility and Gore beats Bush on that hands down,'' Hattaway said, noting that Gore plans to use some of the budget surplus to pay off the national debt, while Bush backs a major tax cut.
Gore adviser Elaine Kamarck, a co-founder of a DLC think tank, disputed that the council and Gore are at odds. Instead, she said that some DLC members are at odds with each other, especially on issues such as Social Security.
Al From, the leadership council's president, wrote in the organization's magazine recently that he was concerned that Gore would rely too heavily on attacking Bush, instead of stressing his alternative vision. From said that Gore couldn't assume that his roots as a moderate New Democrat would be enough to win over moderate voters.
''I fear that Gore will not be able to win the vital center by pushing Bush to the right with a negative campaign,'' From wrote. ''He will need to affirmatively occupy the center himself. To do that, he'll have to go beyond the New Democrat status quo and offer a new generation of New Democrat ideas.''
Gore also has distanced himself from the DLC's proposal on overhauling Medicare, which Breaux says would encourage more competition among private insurance companies. Bush, meanwhile, has embraced the measure. Breaux, who chaired a commission on Medicare, said that the issue is another example of how Bush has latched on to a leadership council idea.
Similarly, after the council published an education reform plan last year, Bush announced a proposal that was ''remarkably similar,'' according to Senator Joseph Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat who chairs the council.
The proposal relied heavily on providing more aid to localities, but with many strings attached to ensure that schools were accountable for making progress.
Just last week, after much internal debate, Gore announced his own education accountability plan, but he has stopped well short of backing the council's full plan, a version of which is expected to be voted on by the Senate next week.
Lieberman, while stressing that he believes that Gore is ''the real New Democrat,'' said, ''I suppose New Democrats should be flattered that Governor Bush has reached out for the New Democratic life preserver as he tries to swim back to the mainstream. Since the primaries are over, he has obviously been trying to move back to the center and has backed programs that are either ours exactly or are like ours.''
Senator Blanche L. Lincoln, the moderate Arkansas Democrat who is a member of the council, said she was heartened when Gore last week began to talk about the need for accountability at schools that receive federal funding.
''He had talked early about a revolution in education, but there weren't really any of the words we needed to hear,'' Lincoln said. ''When he came out stressing accountability, that definitely encouraged me to know he is not just going to walk that status quo line in terms of education.''
Lincoln said she hopes Gore will be a little more flexible on Social Security as well. While Lincoln does not support the Kerrey-Breaux plan, she does not rule out allowing a smaller percentage of savings to be privately invested.
''In negotiating something like Social Security, to ensure its future, you have to be open-minded,'' she said.
For months, a central topic of the presidential campaign has been whether Bush would be able to move to the middle, especially after his move to the right during the primaries and his appearance at the conservative Bob Jones University.
Since essentially securing the nomination, Bush has spent weeks solidifying his moderate credentials, highlighting his plans to improve education and other issues.
The strategy appears to be working, according to an NBC-TV/Wall Street Journal poll released this week. The survey showed Bush leading Gore by 50 percent to 35 percent among suburbanites and 43 percent to 37 percent among independents. The poll showed that Gore's lead among women has evaporated to only 2 percentage points, while Bush leads among men, 51 percent to 39 percent.
To Breaux, those figures are danger signs that Gore should interpret as a call to action on a moderate agenda. Referring to the way Clinton criticized a controversial rap singer in 1992 in an effort to appeal to moderates, Breaux said of Gore, ''He needs a Sister Souljah moment.''
