ASHINGTON - Vice President Al Gore's campaign strategy has been unshakable for months. Stay to the center, court the suburban middle class, and keep focused on the general election. The strategy presumed that traditional Democratic constituencies such as labor, minority groups, and women would tag along.
But even as polls show Gore with a healthy lead over his lone Democratic challenger, former senator Bill Bradley, a potentially serious weakness has been exposed in the vice president's campaign. Though Gore has locked up support from most of the party establishment, he seems out of sync with many liberal party activists who are crucial to winning the nomination, and that could cause him serious trouble in the coming months.
Bradley, sensing that Gore has left his left flank exposed, has rushed to rally the liberal wing. The former New Jersey senator, for example, has moved to the left of Gore on gun control, suggesting that every handgun be registered, while Gore has said only that new handguns should be licensed. Bradley also has made a strong pitch to minority groups, including a high-profile speech in Chicago yesterday, and has said his top issue is race relations. And he is trying to persuade the AFL-CIO to stay neutral during the primaries.
''There is this huge void because the vice president has not connected to progressive Democrats,'' said Senator Paul Wellstone, the liberal Minnesota Democrat who has endorsed Bradley. ''I think that will be real important for the nomination because so many of the organizers, the people who are really willing to do the work for you, are the progressive Democrats. It is critically important.''
Gore aides insist that the vice president carries his liberal credentials proudly and provided a long list of examples of endorsements from members of minority groups, union leaders, and others. ''The vice president has very strong support among the progressive element of the Democratic Party,'' said Gore campaign spokesman Roger Salazar.
Yet Gore's problem was emphasized, unintentionally, when President Clinton recently took a ''poverty tour'' across the United States. When the president visited Appalachia, Indian reservations, and other areas relatively untouched by the nation's economic prosperity, many liberal activists viewed the trip as proof of their point that the prosperity touted by the Clinton-Gore administration has left too many people behind.
Bradley sent an early signal that he would court the liberal wing when he sought and won the endorsement of Wellstone, who dropped out of the presidential race after considering it for months. Now, Bradley hopes to win the endorsement of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, who has criticized the Clinton-Gore administration's effort to overhaul welfare.
To be sure, Bradley is not running as a self-described liberal. Rather, he prefers to shun such labels and to portray himself as in tune with the county's ''idealism.''
For Gore, the disconnection with his party's liberal wing is a deja vu experience. In 1988, Gore lost his bid for the Democratic nomination to former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, who swept to a series of primary victories with help from liberal constituencies.
''They are very important to you,'' Dukakis said, referring to the liberal activists who helped him win the nomination. ''I am the only person who beat Al Gore in an election.''
Dukakis, however, lost the general election when Republicans castigated him as a liberal, and the lesson of the ''L word'' is well remembered by the Democratic Party establishment. When Bill Clinton ran for the presidency in 1992, he adopted a centrist New Democrat agenda, with Gore as his running mate. The Clinton-Gore administration has since had a rocky relationship with liberals on issues ranging from gay rights to welfare to affirmative action.
The potential defection of liberals to Bradley is significant because this group generally is not among those who suffer from ''Clinton fatigue'' as a result of the Monica Lewinsky affair and the impeachment proceedings. Instead, if liberals are put out with Clinton, it is because they have long been at odds with the administration's ties to the Democratic Leadership Council, the party's leading centrist organization. To many liberals, especially those from urban areas, Gore's focus on issues such as suburban sprawl does not resonate.
''Gore is in the unenviable position of having to reconcile the `New Democrats' with (AFL-CIO head) John Sweeney and the Rev. Jesse Jackson,'' said Norman Birnbaum, one of the founders of the Campaign for America's Future, a coalition of unions and humanitarian and environmental groups. ''Bradley doesn't carry any of this baggage and is moving to get this vote by saying that poverty and race are the central American problems.''
Amy Isaacs, national director of Americans for Democratic Action, the nation's leading liberal political organization, said that her 75,000-member organization is ''pretty evenly split'' in supporting Gore and Bradley, indicating a surprising softness of support for the vice president.
Bradley's effort to woo members of minority groups is at the center of his campaign strategy, according to Jacque DeGraff, a senior Bradley adviser and the campaign's director for delegate selection. He said Bradley can win the nomination if he makes ''substantial inroads into the black vote.''
''President Clinton is highly regarded in the African-American community; we don't dispute that,'' DeGraff said. ''But the question about who will occupy the White House for the next four years is a different question.''
DeGraff maintained that Gore was not warmly embraced by blacks during the 1988 campaign, while he said Bradley has longstanding credibility among blacks that will pay off during the campaign.
But Representative Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat and one of Gore's leading black supporters, disagreed. ''I think Bill Bradley is just an alternative right now to Gore. When it all settles, Gore will be the candidate,'' he said.
Another Bradley target is organized labor. Both Bradley and Gore have had their differences with labor, with both supporting the North American Free Trade Act, which was opposed by the AFL-CIO. Gore, as the incumbent vice president who has been supported by labor in the past, is expected to be endorsed by the AFL-CIO. That endorsement is considered crucial because the unions spend so much time and money working on behalf of their presidential candidate.
Yet the AFL-CIO requires a two-thirds vote of its board for a presidential endorsement. ''Gore doesn't have two-thirds right now,'' said a top-ranking labor official who spoke on condition of anonymity. While Gore is strongly backed by the educational and service unions, he faces some opposition with the industrial trade unions, such as the steelworkers and auto workers, who dislike the administration's trade policies. While no one thinks Bradley will get the AFL-CIO's endorsement, it is possible that the union will not have enough votes to back Gore, which would be a major embarrassment for the vice president.
''Bradley has worked it real hard,'' said Steven Rosenthal, the AFL-CIO's political director. ''He has people around him'' who know labor unions very well. But Rosenthal said Gore ''has done a very good job of developing relationships with leaders in the labor movement.''
