NEWS ANALYSIS : Home Stretch Puts Bush in a 2-Week Sprint

President Bush has never more forcefully stated the main premise of his candidacy--that Democratic rival Bill Clinton can’t be trusted with the presidency--than he did in the final presidential debate.

But the daunting reality facing Bush is that he has only two weeks left to make that case, after trying vainly to get it across for more than two months.

“I think this election has been over for a long time,” said John Petrocik, a political science professor at UCLA and a polling consultant to Bush’s 1988 campaign. “People don’t have a reason to vote for Bush and you can’t get from your base vote to a majority just by giving people reasons to vote against your opponent.”

Bush, however, clearly was buoyed by his debate performance and continued to express confidence he could stage a dramatic come-from-behind victory. On Tuesday, as he embarked on what was billed as an all-out, aggressive campaign schedule through Election Day, he told a crowd in Georgia: “Don’t believe these crazy pollsters! Don’t believe these nutty pollsters! Don’t let these guys tell you what you think. . . . We don’t need that in the United States.”

Clinton and his advisers, meanwhile, are convinced that Bush’s last chance to brake the Arkansas governor’s momentum has passed. Thus, they are optimistically trying to exploit the potential for an electoral landslide suggested by polling data by broadening their reach to encompass parts of the country where Democrats have feared to tread in recent elections.

Even as Clinton prepared to campaign today in such traditional Republican strongholds as Colorado and Wyoming, he dispatched crack Democratic advance man Jim King to scout the terrain for a possible sortie next week to Florida, a state Bush carried with 61% of the vote in 1988.

“We’re going to be looking to expand the base of states we have been looking at in terms of electoral votes,” said Joan Bagett, chief of staff of the Democratic National Committee. “You are going to see more states in the South and West coming into play.”

Uncertainties remain, of course. One is the presence in the race of independent candidate Ross Perot. But at the moment, based on his performance in Monday’s concluding debate, Perot appears to constitute at least as much of a threat to the beleaguered Bush as to Clinton.

“For the first time, I felt that Perot was going after Bush directly, trying to pull Bush’s support over to himself,” said Larry Berman, a UC Davis specialist in the presidency and foreign policy. He referred to Perot’s charge that Bush had helped “create” Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein by funneling to his regime “billions” of dollars in taxpayer money.

Frank Luntz, a GOP pollster who worked briefly for Perot earlier this year, calculates that the Texas businessman has benefited enough from his debate performances that he could pull enough votes from Bush in Southern and Rocky Mountain states to help Clinton carry those states.

In California, Luntz believes Perot’s resurgence in support will have the net effect of costing Clinton some votes. But Luntz added: “Clinton is winning by so much there that it won’t make much difference.”

Two recent polls, including a survey by The Times, gave Clinton 21 percentage-point leads in the state.

Bush campaign officials have refused to officially write off California. But asked after the Monday debate whether Bush’s campaign plans include a stop in California, without which no Republican has won the White House in more than 100 years, Bush campaign Chairman Robert M. Teeter said only: “I don’t know. We’ve got some free days. We are not going to this week, but we might before it’s over.”

Bush’s best chance for help from Perot, in the view of Luntz and several other professionals, is probably in such industrial states as Michigan and New Jersey.

Some Bush staffers, their spirits buoyed by the President’s performance in Monday’s debate, on Tuesday contended that the President has captured momentum coming out of the face-off and was closing in on Clinton.

Mary Matalin, the deputy campaign manager, told reporters traveling with the President in the South that Bush had closed to within single digits of Clinton in overnight national polls conducted by the GOP camp.

Such findings would seem to contradict the results of recent independent polls, which gave Clinton leads in the high teens.

Bush’s own campaign itinerary served as perhaps the most valid gauge of his predicament. Along with campaigning Tuesday in Georgia, Bush visited South Carolina. Both are states that in the past three presidential elections were at the core of the Republican South.

Also on this week’s schedule are Florida, New Jersey and Maine, all of which Bush had safely locked up by this time four years ago. And the President’s advisers made clear that he would also stump in the Mountain West.

For all his troubles, Bush has served notice that if he is turned out of office, it won’t be for lack of effort down the home stretch.

Aides said he plans to travel every day between now and the Nov. 3 election in hopes of pulling off a come-from-behind triumph.

“We’re behind, you know,” White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said. “When you’re behind, you go all out.”

Teeter said the President’s foreign policy experience, along with the contrast between his economic plan and Clinton’s, will make up two parts of Bush’s strategic thrust in the closing days.

The third point, Teeter said, “is what all presidential elections boil down to and that is character. Nobody alive today--whether it is Clinton or President Bush or Perot--knows what the toughest problems are that the next President will face over the next four years. So what the voters do is look at the candidates and make value judgments as to which one they can trust.”

As for Clinton, aides say they are going to stick with the formula that has gotten them this far.

“If we talk about anything other than the need for change and the need for strong economic leadership, if we deviate from those themes, we are making a mistake,” said senior consultant James Carville.

Still another sign of Clinton’s confidence is his decision to schedule a stop at a get-out-the-vote rally in Costa Mesa. Calif., Thursday, even though his polls show California all but certain to go his way on Nov. 3. Clinton scheduled the stop, the senior campaign official said, to help boost Democratic senatorial candidates Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.

Times Washington bureau chief Jack Nelson and Times staff writers Douglas Jehl, Doyle McManus and Thomas B. Rosenstiel contributed to this story.

Today on the Trail . . .

Gov. Bill Clinton campaigns in Pueblo, Colo., Cheyenne, Wyo., Billings, Mont., and Seattle.

President Bush campaigns in Gastonia, Kannapolis, Thomasville, Burlington and Raleigh, N.C.

Ross Perot has no public events scheduled.

TELEVISION

Margot Perot is a guest on ABC’s “Good Morning America” at 7 a.m. PDT.

Al Gore is a guest on MTV’s “Choose or Loose “ forum at 10 p.m. PDT.

CNN airs a profile of James B. Stockdale at 7:30 p.m. PDT.

C-SPAN may air repeats of the presidential debates. For updated program schedules, call C-SPAN at 202-628-2205.