Air of Despair Shrouds Some Top Bush Aides : GOP: The President’s camp is seen as squandering what few chances it may have to cut into Clinton’s lead.

With just 19 days before Election Day, a mood of grim resignation has settled over prominent Republicans and some senior White House aides.

As George Bush mounts a final effort to save his grasp on the presidency, the White House added to the unease Wednesday, reversing field on a plan to give new prominence to James A. Baker III’s role as chief economic planner in a second term.

Only two days after saying that Baker would deliver a major speech this week outlining his new task, White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said no such address is now scheduled.

Against that confusing backdrop, Republicans outside the White House increasingly complain that the Bush camp is squandering what few opportunities it may have to cut into Clinton’s lead.

“It’s a bad campaign. It’s one of the worst in history,” a former Cabinet officer charged. “It has no sense of itself. It has no center. It lurches from one strategy to another. There’s just no punch to what we are doing.”

Bush strategists concede that 10 months of effort to drive home their central themes have done little to change Americans’ perceptions of Bush, leaving the President still trailing Bill Clinton by about 10 points in the polls.

Despite the fact that no candidate has been this far behind at this stage of the campaign and still won, Bush strategists still hold out hope for a last-minute comeback. They say their strategy will feature ever more forceful efforts to convince voters that Clinton is untrustworthy and that George Bush, if reelected, would become a more active and vigorous domestic leader.

“The execution might have been stumblebum,” a senior Bush campaign official said, “but the message is still out there. And sooner or later, it’s going to take its toll on that guy (Clinton).”

Nonetheless, even insiders acknowledge that the picture is bleak: “Things look grim,” one senior adviser says. “Embattled? Yes. Tough circumstances? Yes. Uphill climb? Yes. Daunted? No,” said another senior White House aide, clearly striving to keep his hopes alive.

One well-placed Republican lobbyist reports that he has been getting a steady stream of calls from White House aides, seeking what he calls “career counseling”--a sign they do not expect a Republican victory. In the White House, a senior official complained about “the resume writers” already seeking post-election jobs outside a government they expect to be controlled by Democrats.

In another sign of flagging spirits, the President’s strategists have begun to test a rationale for defeat: “We’ve run a terrible campaign,” one well-placed strategist says, “but if we’d run a perfect campaign, we’d be in exactly the same shape.”

The near-despair comes in the wake of what some aides privately describe as a series of campaign missteps that have put Bush in the unenviable position of entering the final weeks of his campaign sounding a message that has failed him before.

Their criticisms include blame directed at the President himself, which a well-placed operative said was an “unheard of” breach of a cardinal White House rule.

The blackness of the current mood was apparent in the past few days, as aides conceded that Bush bumbled his much-postponed announcement of the new job for Baker, the current chief of staff. Bush disclosed Baker’s role during the debate Sunday night with Clinton and Ross Perot, but he did not make clear just what his friend would do or why it should matter to voters.

They also have complained that, when Bush last month sought to raise questions about his opponent’s draft record, he allowed the Democrat to blunt what might have been a strong attack by mischaracterizing a letter that Clinton wrote in 1969 criticizing the military.

During an appearance on the Rush Limbaugh radio show in New York last month, Bush charged that his rival had said in the 1969 letter that the military was “immoral.”

As the Clinton campaign quickly pointed out, however, the Arkansas governor actually had said that the draft system was “illegitimate” and that some Americans found themselves “loathing” the military. News coverage about Bush’s remarks focused as much on the fact that he had exaggerated as it did on the charge itself.

The White House mood is not unrelentingly bleak. There is still hope that Bush’s message, through repetition and volume, might achieve the critical mass necessary to change the course of the election.

“No one is sanguine; people would certainly trade where we are,” said a senior White House official known for his even temper and generally sunny disposition. But, he insisted, “this is an open matter, very much so. The vote is fluid, very volatile. Clinton’s (poll) numbers are soft, and if Perot gains, it helps us.

“I don’t want to sound like I’m grasping for reeds,” he said, “but we think this is winnable, and more importantly, our leader does. He’s the coolest hand on deck. I don’t see any quitting. Everybody is determined as hell.”

But that is not the picture offered by others, including one senior Bush aide who said that “at every stage, you can see people falling off and saying, ‘We’ve blown it. We’re dead.’ ”

A fight has already begun among Republicans about the future of a party whose prominent members increasingly expect to be led by someone other than Bush, a senior White House official acknowledged.

Among the recent miscues to which Republicans point, two are most prominent: The handling of the Baker appointment and the multiple efforts to criticize Clinton over the draft.

On Baker’s role, White House officials sought to add to the impact of Bush’s passing reference Sunday to Baker’s new job by rushing to disclose that the controversial Administration economic team--Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady, chief economic adviser Michael J. Boskin and Budget Director Richard G. Darman--would be dismissed if Bush were reelected.

But when the three relayed complaints Monday morning that they were being unfairly humiliated, Bush suggested that aides take steps to minimize the slight, sources say. After a day of White House backpedaling, Baker issued a memorandum declaring that all top Bush appointees would be expected to submit pro forma letters of resignation.

The effect, one adviser said, was to muddy Bush’s campaign trail message on a crucial post-debate day: “I think we should have been more clear,” one adviser said, “but we haven’t been very good at that lately.”

With Clinton’s draft record, Republicans complain that a series of opportunities have been squandered through miscalculation or misstatement.

Recently, when Bush criticized his rival for avoiding military service, participating in anti-Vietnam War demonstrations and traveling to Moscow at the height of that conflict, the words sounded to many like an attack on Clinton’s patriotism.

As the assaults appeared to backfire, Bush repeatedly insisted that he was not questioning Clinton’s allegiance to his country, and has withdrawn his complaints about the Moscow trip. But frustrated advisers say the shifts undermined what they regard as a more fruitful line of attack--emphasizing the conflicting accounts Clinton had given of the incident.

“He’s doing this the way he wants to do it,” one strategist said of Bush, making clear that the tactic was not one that his advisers would prefer.

In its bid to overtake the Arkansas governor, the Bush campaign is hoping that a more aggressive performance by the President in tonight’s debate and a final face-off with Clinton next Monday can quickly cut the Democrat’s lead in the polls at least in half.

A senior White House official said the Bush team is operating under the theory that voters still do not fundamentally trust Clinton but have doubts about whether Bush, if reelected, would be an activist on domestic issues.

Times staff writer Doyle McManus contributed to this story.

The Final Two Debates

Here is the schedule for the two final presidential debates: Today: Richmond, Va., 6 p.m. PDT, * A single moderator and audience questions Monday: E. Lansing, Mich., 4 p.m. PDT, *Single moderator for first half, panel for the second ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and C-SPAN are carrying the debates live.