"First they had him delivering a negative message every day in reaction to each 'race to the middle' policy speech by [George W.] Bush," says a high-ranking Senate staffer who supports Gore. "It took him weeks to stop doing that. Why they ever started it is a mystery. What were they thinking? 'We got a guy with pretty high negatives here, let's make every message of the day Gore taking a whack at Bush'?"

The Senate staffer was heartened to hear news a few weeks ago that Gore was going to put on a friendlier face and take it easy on his attacks against Bush, while sharing more personal information about himself and making policy announcements about cancer-research funding and child care. And that seemed to go over well.

But on Wednesday, the Democratic National Committee unveiled new pro-Gore advertisements that are to be funded with at least $25 million, much of it soft money -- in an apparent violation of one of Gore's first general election promises, to refrain from using soft-money ads unless the Republican National Committee did so first. The Senate staffer calls this move "stupid."

"Right now the Gore campaign is trying to convince people that, 'No, really, Al Gore's a decent, principled human being,'" the Senate staffer says. "And they pay for that campaign by violating a principle that he enunciated with great ceremony about two months ago. [This] reinforces everybody's worst impressions of Gore as a politician that has no conviction other than his own ambition."

"I don't get it," says the Senate staffer. "They're smart guys over there; I can't explain it."

Sure, things have turned around somewhat -- both a Zogby poll from the end of May and a Newsweek poll from June 1-2 had Gore and Bush in a statistical dead heat.

But many Gore allies wonder if that's true -- and if so, how long is it going to last? In addition to the soft-money brouhaha, Wednesday also brought news, courtesy of Republicans on the House Government Reform Committee, that FBI Director Louis Freeh argued in December 1998 that there was "compelling evidence" to appoint an independent counsel to investigate Gore's role in the 1996 fundraising scandal.

News of the Freeh memo and Gore's broken soft-money promise is just the latest in a series of instances of bad luck and missteps the Gore operation has suffered since it wiped the floor with Sen. Bill Bradley on Super Tuesday, March 7. All of which have had the cumulative effect of prompting even close allies to wonder aloud just what the hell Gore is thinking. Some have become so frustrated they've taken their messages directly to newspapers -- New Jersey Sen. Bob Torricelli and New York Rep. Charlie Rangel voiced concerns to the New York Times on May 25.

"People are starting to ask, 'When does he get started? When does he get focused? How did Bush catch up? When does the show hit the road?'" Rangel said to the Times.

Many political experts agree. "In my gut, do I think Gore's going to win? I don't think so," says Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report.

Gore spokesman Doug Hattaway insists that all is well -- and if you don't believe him, he says, check out the other guy.

"Bush has been very defensive lately," Hattaway says. "Only [Tuesday] he was defensive about his Social Security plan, when Al Gore hasn't even breathed his name on the stump." (Gore hasn't mentioned Bush's name in public since May 26, as pointed out by the New York Times.)

Hattaway's conclusion: "Bush's poll numbers must be shaky."

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