ASHINGTON - For George W. Bush, the devil is in the details.
No presidential candidate has heaped policy particulars and precise plans on his opponent and on American voters with the gusto of Al Gore. Now Bush has started firing back with his own facts and figures, and the race that many thought would be a personality contest seems to be turning into a clash of policy wonks.
Yesterday, the vice president offered up a 12-chapter, 191-page budget document that was more than a manifesto of his domestic policy goals. It was a challenge for Bush to match him on the details.
''You don't have to guess at what the specifics are,'' Gore said, using the words ''specific,'' ''detailed,'' and ''concrete'' nine times to describe his blueprint in a speech at Cleveland State University. ''You can read my plan.''
On Tuesday, Bush laid out the details of his $198 billion initiative to overhaul the Medicare program and to provide seniors coverage for prescription drugs. Yesterday, in separate campaign appearances, he repeated his plan for rebuilding the military, and outlined the specifics of his tax-cut proposal.
''The voters are demanding details,'' said a Democratic pollster, Celinda Lake. ''They have a lot of issues on their minds. They don't think we have made as much progress in the last eight years as we should have, and they want these candidates to be very specific about how they are going to move the ball forward.''
Lake acknowledges that an issue-centered campaign gives Gore the initial advantage. The vice president is a tireless, articulate policy maven, and polls have found that voters give Democrats the edge when asked which party they trust more to improve education, enhance health care, and protect Social Security.
For months, Gore has needled Bush to get more specific on the economic proposals he made during the GOP primaries. The more Bush resisted and focused on issues of character and trust, the more relentless Gore became in questioning both Bush's substance and the risks of his unscrutinized plans.
Gore also got a boost in the polls after giving an acceptance speech heavy on issues at the Democratic convention in Los Angeles.
''What you've seen in the last week is the Bush campaign realizing they have to come back on these issues because it was starting to hurt them,'' said Thomas Patterson, Bradlee professor of government and the press at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. ''You can float above it for only so long. Once people start asking, `where's the beef?' you have to give them some.''
Many Bush supporters say this is a good thing. Not only will Bush rise to the challenge and show mastery of the issues, they say, but he will also demonstrate that he will be a president of vision and direction and a different kind of Republican: a compassionate conservative committed to getting jobs done in a bipartisan way.
In his Medicare speech Tuesday in Allentown, Pa., Bush praised the Great Society program enacted by the Democratic president, Lyndon B. Johnson, as a success for seniors, and he spoke specifically of how he could work with Democrats like Senator John B. Breaux of Louisiana to reshape it for the 21st century.
''By history and by choice, our nation makes a promise: We will honor our fathers and mothers by providing quality health insurance to every senior citizen,'' Bush said. ''Keeping the promise of Medicare, and expanding it to include prescription drug coverage will be a priority of my administration,'' Bush said.
''That speech gave a window on a Bush presidency,'' said Alvin Felzenberg, a visiting scholar at the Heritage Foundation, a think tank, who served in President George Bush's administration. ''It showed that he can be magnanimous, that he is a compassionate conservative, that he has command of the issue, that he won't come in and torch the programs people like, but he will end the Washington food fight that people hate.
''It accomplished all of his goals,'' Felzenberg said.
If the presidential campaign stayed issue-driven for the next two months - and there is no guarantee of that - it would present voters with clear differences between the candidates. Bush is highlighting his bold proposals - privatizing a portion of Social Security, returning part of the federal budget surplus in the form of a tax cut, and giving seniors market choices in Medicare coverage. Gore, meanwhile, is offering himself as the steady hand, the leader offering modest proposals that won't upset the status quo.
''My plan wasn't built on the cross-your-fingers economics that says we can give more to the people who already have the most, and then just hope the benefits trickle down to the middle class,'' Gore said yesterday.
Gore's budget blueprint, called ''Prosperity for America's Families,'' is by far the most comprehensive package put forward by any presidential candidate, analysts said yesterday. Most of its contents were known, however, including the plan to reduce the national debt, to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, and to offer targeted tax cuts and savings incentives.
When voters say they want campaigns to be about issues, what they may really mean is that they don't like mudslinging and negative ads.
''Americans have always found politics distasteful, and it's been a little worse lately,'' said Thomas Mann, director of government studies at the Brookings Institution, a think tank. ''It always seemed likely to me that efforts to make this campaign about scandal and impeachment would fall flat if candidates elevated the tone with a promise to talk about health care, education, and Social Security.''
In truth, pollsters say, most Americans really don't pay that much attention the details of the policies the candidates are now so painstakingly putting forward.
''I don't think the specifics of the Bush plan or the Gore plan on Medicare are going to make a lot of people change their votes,'' said Steven Kull, director of the nonprofit Center on Public Attitudes, which released a study last month showing the majority of Americans wants government to make fundamental changes in the health care system.
''Voters want to know the candidates have a plan, and they want to know if other people they respect view it favorably,'' Kull said. ''But I don't think they are going to read the fine print.''
