NEWS ANALYSIS : Backdraft: Blast at Clinton Burns Bush : Politics: As his aides backpedal on Democrat attack, analysts see a campaign in disarray, and one that justifies its negative image.

With its latest fumbled personal attack on Bill Clinton, the Bush campaign has done itself double damage--by suggesting again that it is in disarray and that the Democrats may be right in calling the Republicans negative campaigners, political analysts said Monday.

“It’s a sign of their continuing confusion and inability to come up with a consistent line,” said Stephen A. Salmore, a Republican consultant in New Jersey. “They keep having second thoughts about what they do--when they should be having first thoughts.”

The episode climaxed Monday as President Bush disavowed a press release in which his campaign’s political director, Mary Matalin, mocked the Democratic nominee as “Slick Willie,” referred to Clinton’s alleged marital infidelities and even needled Clinton about his struggles to control his weight. The press release, faxed Sunday to news organizations, apparently broke the President’s promise that neither he nor his aides would make personal attacks.

Although the incident will probably change few votes, analysts said it seems to underscore again that the Republican Party, which has functioned flawlessly in so many recent elections, this year seems sputtering and desultory.

“Whatever you can say about the Republican campaign in 1988, it was a very well-disciplined organization, one that knew in the morning what was going to happen for the rest of the day,” said one Republican consultant, who asked to remain unidentified. “This year, in the absence of a strategy or a plan, you have a bunch of free-lance missions that may or may not be sanctioned from the top.”

Don Stipp, a Republican consultant in Washington, said the damage was not confined to an image of campaign disarray--an image that average voters might or might not notice. He said that by seeming to corroborate the Democrats’ charge that the Republicans are consummate negative campaigners, the flap may persuade voters to discount all the Republicans’ attacks on the Democratic nominee.

“This boxes in the campaign by inoculating Clinton against future negative attacks,” he said. “And since everyone believes Bush is fully in control of his staff, it makes them look hypocritical.”

Political analysts said that by seizing headlines for two days running, the incident had made it more difficult for Bush to get across the message he was trying to make in campaigning.

The analysts said that in a recessionary year, when the President may find it difficult to campaign on his record, the Republicans need to raise doubts about Clinton’s character. But they noted that the safe and time-honored way to handle such attacks is through surrogates, such as Republican senators and outside political activists, who can claim to have no connection to the Bush campaign.

“You could have any of a large number of people handle a job like that,” said Salmore. “There’s no reason to have your political director do it. . . . “

Despite such views, some Democratic analysts argued Monday that the attack and disavowal were only a ploy to win new and wide publicity for Clinton’s alleged character faults while distancing the President from such attacks.

Tony Podesta, Democratic consultant in Washington, said Bush’s denunciation of Matalin’s words were akin to the tactics the President used in 1988 with the infamous Willie Horton ad against 1988 Democratic nominee Michael S. Dukakis. The ad, which criticized Dukakis for allowing the furlough of a black Massachusetts convict who subsequently attacked a white couple, was paid for by an avowedly independent political group.

“This is 1988 redux,” said Podesta. “You crank up the Republican attack machine, but you take efforts to keep the President on the high road.”

But other analysts, including some Democrats, were skeptical.

“I suspect that this was not intentional, coming at this particular moment,” said Greg Schneiders, a Democratic political consultant in Washington. “They don’t need more flip-flops.”

Personal attacks are always dangerous for a candidate, because they drive up the attackers’ negative ratings even as they drive up those of the accused. They are particularly dangerous for incumbent presidents, because voters expect better behavior from their chief executive.

“With the presidency, you get the benefit of the majesty of office in the voters’ eyes,” said Democratic consultant Podesta. “But the flip side of that is that people expect more of you too.”

Nonetheless, some analysts predict Bush will bombard Clinton with his heaviest ordnance in the next few months as he attempts to prove that he, rather than Clinton, can be entrusted with the nation’s highest office.

With the economy reflecting poorly on Bush, the President needs to convince voters that Clinton is a wholly unacceptable alternative, Schneiders said.