The primary process redefined these candidates

A political expert says Gore has been pulled to the center, while Bush has been pushed further to the right. WASHINGTON -- The biggest primary vote in the nation's history

Thursday, March 9th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

A political expert says Gore has been pulled to the center, while Bush has been pushed further to the right.

WASHINGTON -- The biggest primary vote in the nation's history has come close to confirming the 2000 presidential match-up -- Vice President Al Gore versus Texas Gov. George W. Bush -- so widely predicted before the year's first ballots were cast.

But in the crucible of surprisingly tough competition in both parties, that showdown has been recast into something quite unlike the early forecasts.

Democrat Gore, wobbling so badly last summer that he ordered an emergency retooling of his campaign, has steadily gained strength under former Sen. Bill Bradley's strong challenge.

Republican Bush, whose record fundraising and staunch party backing undergirded a promise to broaden the GOP, has had potentially grave weaknesses exposed by Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Now the main suspense about McCain has shifted away from long-shot nomination scenarios. Bush carried Super Tuesday so decisively and took such a commanding lead in the delegate tally that the new question for McCain seems to be this: What will it take to quell his insurgency and bring him back into the Republican fold?

Indeed, McCain seemed to defy the majority of yesterday's GOP voters when he told supporters shortly before midnight, ``Our crusade continues tonight, tomorrow, the next day . . . and for as long as it takes to restore the confidence and pride'' of the nation in its institutions.

But McCain was pointedly vague about whether he will fight on through next Tuesday's daunting primaries on Bush's home ground of Texas and elsewhere in the South, and through the Illinois primary in two weeks.

With Bush reestablished as the GOP's prohibitive favorite, ``there's no question that the general election will commence in precisely the reverse of the positions expected six months ago,'' said Thomas Mann, a scholar of presidential politics at the Brookings Institution.

``Gore emerges relatively unscathed -- if anything pulled to the center by his opponent, and not to the left pole of his party,'' Mann said. Bush, by contrast, ``no longer has his aura of invincibility, has been pushed further to the right and has spent more of his money than anyone thought he would.''

Gore is now free to move to a war footing for the fall campaign. He signalled the shift in a victory speech in Nashville, Tenn., that was a classic appeal to stick with a status quo of peace and prosperity. He can argue that the good times have been built during the Clinton-Gore administration.

``More Americans have hope. America is strong, prosperous, at peace in the world,'' he declared last night. He then took aim at potential Bush vulnerabilities, such as a ``risky tax scheme'' that, in his words, would waste the federal budget surplus.

Gore now looks toward the general election with some advantages nobody would have predicted last fall.

Bush, meanwhile, took strides toward the Republican presidential nomination yesterday with the stacks of delegates he piled up coast to coast. But even if ``Super Tuesday'' was the beginning of the end for McCain, Bush does not yet have the luxury of turning his full attention to Gore.

First, Bush must heal the breach that the bitter GOP campaign has opened between his camp and McCain's.

Bush must also try to restore his early promise as a new brand of ``compassionate conservative'' Republican who can broaden the party's base enough to beat Gore in November.

Bush has a record for base-broadening as a winning candidate in two Texas gubernatorial campaigns. He did well, in particular, with Hispanic voters.

But Bush created a new problem for himself when he responded to the requirement to solidify his right flank after McCain's stunning victory in New Hampshire last month.

That problem was symbolized by his controversial appearance at Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., an appeal to his conservative base that McCain helped to turn into a huge controversy. McCain criticized Bush's failure to swiftly denounce the school's ban on interracial dating, and the long-standing anti-Catholic views of some of its leaders.

Gore, who wasn't the least bit bashful about portraying Bradley's sweeping health-care plan as a threat to poor blacks and others, seems a good bet to press the case that Bush is wedded to the right-wing extremes of his party.

Like Gore, Bush took steps in his statements last night to portray himself as his party's nominee. He sought to remind voters of the middle-of-the-road appeal that attracted such glowing reviews in the early phases of the campaign.

Yesterday's victories marked a starting point for ``asking Americans to join me on a great mission of reform and renewal of our land,'' he told supporters in Austin, Texas.

``Republicans must expand our prosperity and extend it to those who still struggle,'' he said, specifying that the GOP must reach out to immigrants and the poor.

Such prominent Bush backers as Ohio Gov. Bob Taft said that the Texas governor has finally put to rest the doubts that some partisans had harbored about whether he was an authentic conservative. Having nailed down his conservative base, Bush can now begin to court the independents and conservative Democrats who have flocked to McCain.

That will be difficult, as suggested by California exit polls showing that Gore would beat Bush by 9 percentage points, but lose to McCain by 6 points.

These are among the advantages that Gore has carried out of the contest with Bradley:

Gore is well along the way to building a united Democratic Party front. He reached out conspicuously to salute Bradley in his victory speech last night and Bradley reciprocated.

Gore has narrowed what once loomed as a potentially disabling lag in fundraising. McCain forced Bush to spend most of his unparalleled war chest.

Gore's unbroken run of victories against Bradley has permitted him to outline the platform of poll-tested issues, such as more spending on education and health care and saving Social Security.

Perhaps most important, Gore is a presidential candidate much improved by the necessity to fight off an ambitious, well-financed challenge from the brainy, former New Jersey senator.

Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, said McCain could danmage Bush badly -- and later take the blame for it -- if he holds out for big concessions, as did Democratic candidate Jesse Jackson, to the detriment of nominee Walter F. Mondale in 1984 and Michael S. Dukakis in 1988.

But if McCain finds a way to join Bush gracefully, ``he might just bring along some of those McCain independents,'' Sabato said.