The Bush campaign had expected Al Gore to get a ''bounce'' from the Democratic convention in mid-August.
History shows that nominees get a lift in the polls, in the afterglow of their party meetings.
Yet Gore's bounce continued well into September, and George W. Bush's insistence upon dictating the terms of his debates with the vice president only seemed to add to his problem. Today, with two debates done and the final encounter coming Tuesday, the Texas governor has eliminated Gore's advantage, and has pulled ahead in some public opinion surveys. While some of the explanation may lie with Gore's exaggerations, or his much-dissected heavy sighs at the first debate, a measure of credit may belong to a tightening of Bush's operation about a month ago. In some cases, the changes ran counter to the candidate's tendencies. The Republican nominee, who for months delighted in ambling back on his campaign plane to chitchat with reporters or to marvel at the work of his traveling photographers, learned that his free-wheeling exchanges and regular press conferences had undercut the effort to deliver a chosen message each day.