Trying Clinton On for Size : Like people contemplating marriage, voters must close their eyes and imagine life with Bill. The governor hopes they’ll overcome their doubts. Bush hopes they’ll get cold feet.

Americans already have a picture of George Bush as President. They know all they think they need to know: his style, his instincts, his Dana Carvey eccentricities. But the country seems unprepared to reelect Bush.

So for the next dozen days, millions of Americans will be in the final phase of trying on Bill Clinton, a guy they had barely heard of a year ago.

The psychology is similar to what goes on when an engaged couple tries to visualize themselves as husband and wife.

Or perhaps when the couple buys a home: Just before the closing, they’ll bring swatches of material to the new place; they’ll argue over where to put the couch; they’ll try to imagine eating breakfast while looking out a particular window.

In the same way, less than two weeks before they close the curtain in the voting booth, many Americans are wondering if they can live with Clinton.

Can they picture him calling Boris Yeltsin?

Can they live with that little grin that says, “I’m the smartest boy in the class?”

And when he strides into a room, can they hum “Hail to the Chief” and feel right about it?

When it comes down to it, the 1992 election--the whole derby of attacks and counterattacks--seems to turn on voters’ imaginations. For all the talk of tax reform and health care, there is something more basic going on in the mind of the electorate: It has to do with trying to visualize Clinton as President.

Right now, George Bush is working hard to spoil that vision, going so far as to ask viewers of the second presidential debate to join him in a game of make-believe.

“If, in the next five minutes, a television announcer came on and said there is a major international crisis. . .,” Bush intoned last Thursday night, looking not quite comfortable with the game, “my question is: Who, if you were appointed to name one of the three of us, who would you choose? Who has the perseverance, the character, the integrity, the maturity to get the job done?”

In other words, Bush urged: Take one more loving look at the old place before you go moving across town. Or, switching from the house to spouse metaphor: It’s Bush’s best hope that the electorate gets cold feet.

In fact, the dynamic of the election has only recently been about trying on Bill Clinton. For the longest time, it was a referendum on George Bush, the way it usually is when there’s an incumbent. For months now, three-quarters of the voters have consistently said in the polls that they don’t like the way he’s handled the economy and that they want someone else doing his job.

If the election were today, almost half the voters would give Clinton a shot at it, according to the latest Los Angeles Times Poll. But it’s not today, and about one-third of those ostensible Clinton supporters say they are still unsure of their choice.

And so people like Jody Richmond, 36, a housewife from Lincoln, Neb., are still test-driving Bill Clinton to see if he’s big enough for the job.

“I think Clinton would probably do OK, but there’s something about him--you just don’t look at him and think, ‘President of the United States,’ ” Richmond says. “Maybe he’s a little too charming, like he could talk you into anything. . . .”

But like a manager making an unconventional hire, Richmond feels she has no choice but to take a risk.

“Once he gets in there, he might screw up the first couple of deals, but he’ll get the hang of it,” she says. “I mean, what am I going to do? I’m not voting for Bush. Ross Perot is full of hot air. So Clinton’s the only one left. You’ve just got to hope there’s something behind all that charm.”

In the debates, Clinton tried to show he had more to offer. That meant looking beyond his military record, past the flap caused by Gennifer Flowers and outside his plan to pump and primp the economy. Clinton asserted himself as presidential timber by challenging voters “to have the courage to change.”

Doug Bailey, a former Republican consultant who is publisher of the Hotline political newsletter, interpreted Clinton’s message of courage to mean, “I’m bold enough, I hope you are too.” And that, Bailey adds, “is the wording of a leader.”

Clinton’s closing lines at Monday night’s debate about his respect for Bush were also about being presidential, says Bailey. “Or at least that’s the picture of our public servants we most like. We’re entertained when they throw mud, but we like them to be respectful and dignified.”

In nearly every run for the White House, the electorate comes to a point where it must try to bring an ordinary candidate into focus as President with a capital P. Sometimes, that stage is at the beginning of the race. Sometimes, it’s at the end.

Bush understands the phenomenon well.

In his 1988 race, as early as the primaries, he ran political advertisements showing himself in meetings with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and other world leaders. “From Day 1, he’s ready to be a great President,” the ads announced. In other ads, Bush handlers mocked Democratic candidate Michael S. Dukakis by running ads of him looking distinctly unpresidential, sporting a helmet and perched atop a tank.

Ultimately, that election turned on voters’ inability to visualize Dukakis, with that eat-your-peas grin, in the White House.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan faced the same problems Clinton does now. Even though people were fed up with Jimmy Carter, they were also uneasy imagining a former actor in the White House--especially one they thought might blow up the world. Carter fed those fears by running his political ads of people on the street saying the country couldn’t trust the archconservative Reagan.

“Just through his manner in the debates, Reagan was able to turn voters around,” says Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.). “They liked him, so they took a chance on him.”

“I think for Clinton the question became, ‘Is he an acceptable alternative?’ not ‘Is he perfect, or has he ever made mistakes in his life?’ ” says Gephardt. “I think Clinton passed the test in the last two debates. He made people feel comfortable with him as a possible President.”

What compounds this year’s dilemma for a lot of voters is Clinton’s relative youth. He’s in his 40s. He didn’t serve in World War II. He didn’t march up some hill or, for that matter, slog through a jungle in Vietnam. And there is also this huge bloc of voters out there, the 40-and-younger crowd, that has never seen a young President.

David Simpson, a 27-year-old Houston lawyer who is as yet uncommitted, finds Bush’s age an advantage. Simpson sees him as a “grandfather figure”--even though he doesn’t completely trust him.

“I like the idea of a younger President,” says Simpson, “but I wish it was Al Gore. He just seems more solid and trustworthy . . . President Clinton? I’m not sure it goes.”

But Nancy Meadors, a retired librarian from Houston, has tried Clinton on for size and likes the fit. She’s had it with Bush, she says.

“We need someone young in office,” Meadors contends. “We need some enthusiasm and that sort of thing, not the same old geezers we’ve had. . . . The character issue is the most ridiculous thing. I’m a Christian and I believe in family values, but we’re looking for a national leader. We’re not hunting a preacher.”

In many ways, a director casting a movie or a board of directors looking for a CEO goes through the same mental gyrations that some voters are experiencing about Clinton in these final days..

Joyce Talmadge, vice president of a New York executive search company, says it’s rare for someone to have the exact experience that a company would like for a job. In the same way, Clinton as a governor and Ross Perot as a successful businessman have tried to persuade voters that they have experience transferable to the White House.

“Most clients are looking for someone to say, ‘I can do this very well because I believe I have the skills,’ ” says Talmadge, who has a doctorate in psychology. “That’s very perceptible, and it comes from someone’s presence and self-confidence.”

It’s the same in picking a President. Voters ask themselves, “Can I squint hard enough to see this governor in the Oval Office addressing the nation about a big problem?”

In casting a movie, a director often tries to find an actor who can, by his very presence, telegraph certain qualities of his character to the audience, according to Curtis Hanson, who directed “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.”

In the Democratic primaries last winter, Hanson noticed that none of the candidates made an outstanding first impression on voters, which is why there was an initial lack of enthusiasm for any of them.

“The only candidate well-cast out of the blocks in this whole election has been Ross Perot, with his strong personality and quick wit,” says Hanson. “George Bush talked about Harry Truman, but Perot is the only guy who actually sounded like him.”

But just like an actor who looks the part but can’t perform consistently, Perot seems to have worn thin. On the other hand, Clinton--who at first appeared too slick to some voters--has honed his image.

“Particularly in the debates, by acting dignified, in control, like he knows what he wants to say and what he wants to do, he has turned people around,” says Hanson. “He’s like a player in a lead role.”

But Jacqueline Epler, a substitute teacher and farmer’s wife in North Umberland, Pa., isn’t quite ready to accept Clinton as a heroic figure, with all the qualities voters like to see in their President. She’s leaning toward Clinton but is uncomfortable with the “character flaws” that Bush supporters point out.

“Unless you know about him personally--like a mate who you look at on dates or whose friends you meet--it’s hard to say,” says Epler. “You only know what you’ve been told.”

Epler adds: “I also can’t separate what he’s honestly saying and what he thinks he should say. Maybe there’s just too much thrown at us. Maybe man-wise he still looks a little too slick to me. Maybe he smiles too much. Deep inside, I still just can’t tell.”

Researchers Lianne Hart in Houston and Tracy Shryer in Chicago contributed to this story.