doc_text: President Bush is in deep trouble, the panelists agree, hotly pursued in New Hampshire by his conservative challenger, columnist and TV commentator Patrick Buchanan.
  The Democratic line-up, composed of second-and-third-tier candidates, is the weakest in years, they say.
  Yet, because the economy is in such distress, the panelists expect a close and interesting contest, with Mr. Bush stumbling across the line in first place over the probable Democratic nominee, Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas.
  The panelists offer some formulas for judging the year's political events that begin with the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 18.
  "The problem threshold in New Hampshire is 37%," says maverick GOP theoretician Kevin Phillips.
  He means that when an opponent of an incumbent president gets that much or more of the New Hampshire vote, the incumbent is forced into pulling out of the race or goes on to lose the general election.
  He points to Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.
  But none of the panelists is prepared to say that Mr. Bush is necessarily fated to follow in the footsteps of those victims of the New Hampshire primary.
  Democratic strategist Greg Schneiders figures it this way:
  Multiply the rate of economic growth in this year's third quarter by three to get Mr. Bush's winning -- or losing -- November margin.
  If the gross national product growth rate is minus one, he loses by three points.
  If it's zero, it's a dead heat.
  If it's plus one, he wins by three.
  Mr. Bush is off to a terrible start, the panelists agree.
  First of all, they say, he shouldn't be offering so many "mea culpas" about his record in office.
  "It's crazy," says Mr. Phillips.
  Where President Reagan was the Teflon man, to whom nothing stuck, Mr. Bush "is now the Velcro man.
  He will absorb anything that goes wrong."
  It's one thing to acknowledge responsibility "when the damage is over and the recovery has begun," says Mr. Schneiders.
  "But if you do a mea culpa in the middle of an economic free fall, I think it can turn out to be a disaster."
  If Ronald Reagan were president today, says Democratic strategist Alan Baron, he'd be getting less blame for the collapse of the economy and more residual glory for the successful prosecution of the war in the Gulf.
  Mr. Bush's two most recent trips -- 12 days in Asia followed by 12 hours in New Hampshire -- were both unsuccessful, the panelists agree.
  "I can't understand him taking the president of General Motors and the presidents of all these other companies over there," says Mr. Baron.
  "That was silly.
  It takes away his independence."
  As for the campaign trip to New Hampshire, Mr. Baron believes that by going there the president helped to make the primary a legitimate race between himself and Mr. Buchanan.
  Mr. Bush, the panelists say, is a better president than he is a candidate and hasn't helped himself lately by operating almost exclusively in his high-pitched campaign mode.
  "I'm just glad that he's not trying to wage a war right now, because it would be a disaster," says Mr. Schneiders.
  "The president is in free fall in the polls," says Mr. Sears, "and because he doesn't have a personal constituency there's no bottom to it."
  Mr. Sears says, one way or another, he had better hit that bottom fast and start clambering back up to respectability.
  Mr. Buchanan poses a special and very dangerous threat, the panelists agree.
  "He seems to understand that he should tailor himself to be a message carrier," says Mr. Sears.
  "It's a free vote for Republicans in New Hampshire," notes Mr. Baron.
  "Those voters know the difference between primary voting and voting for a president."
  Mr. Schneiders argues that "there's a very scary part of Pat Buchanan that pops to the surface from time to time.
  You don't have to be a crazy liberal to get chills every once in a while at the things he says."
  But the panelists all agree it would be a serious miscalculation if the Bush campaign attacked Mr. Buchanan for his right-wing views.
  "If Buchanan does well," says Mr. Baron, "let the press do it."
  But even if Mr. Bush does well and keeps Mr. Buchanan below 25% of the vote, Mr. Bush doesn't win a famous victory.
  "I mean, beating a columnist]" says Mr. Schneiders.
  The best news for the Republicans, the panelists say, is that none of the current crop of Democrats seeking the nomination looks very impressive.
  "If the Democrats had a strong first-tier candidate in the race at this point, I suspect he would have a good chance of winning" in November, says Mr. Phillips.
  But at the moment, he says, "I don't think {the Democrats will} make it this time unless one of these guys gets a lot better or the economy sinks to another degree."
  The strongest of the five major Democratic candidates is Gov. Clinton, the panelists agree.
  They write off former California Gov. Jerry Brown and they don't see Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa making progress.
  The alternatives to Mr. Clinton in New Hampshire likely will be Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska or, as a kind of temporary holding-action candidate, former Sen. Paul Tsongas of neighboring Massachusetts.
  "My sense is that Clinton will emerge and run a very respectable race in which he begins to sort out for the Democratic Party the divisions that it's in the process of outgrowing," Mr. Phillips says.
  But Mr. Clinton, or any other Democrat, needs to get better and the economy needs to get worse for Mr. Bush to be placed in really serious jeopardy.
  "If Clinton wins New Hampshire by five or six points, I think he'll be the nominee," Mr. Sears predicts.
  But the other panelists aren't so sure.
  Mr. Schneiders sees a scenario in which Mr. Clinton stumbles one way or another or comes under criticism in the press and begins losing a primary here, a primary there.
  Maybe, says Mr. Schneiders, a toptier candidate -- possibly Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York -- jumps into the race and all the dynamics change.
  The other panelists are skeptical anything like that might happen.
  And yet they agree that this will be a year of extraordinary volatility.
  In the general election, the panelists say, Mr. Bush might not be able to win very many points for winning the war in the Gulf.
  "Barring a crisis," says Mr. Schneiders, the war, and foreign policy generally, "won't be major issues."
  But Mr. Phillips thinks that with Saddam Hussein still in power and with the old Soviet Union breaking into pieces, "there's still a lot of ways" in which foreign policy could become an issue.
  Mr. Sears thinks it's possible the Democrats could actually take Mr. Bush on over the fact that Saddam Hussein is still in power.
  "The man is still there," Mr. Sears notes.
  "At a certain point, rather than just beat up on the economy, the Democrats would be wise testing Bush's diminished credibility in this area."
  Though the Democrats lack a candidate with foreign-policy credentials, they can approach the subject obliquely -- by emphasizing trade, talking about how the U.S. is losing jobs to foreign competitors and complaining that the U.S. is in economic decline.
  "It all feeds together," says Mr. Phillips.
  But there will be only one really big issue: the state of the economy.
  They all agree on that.
summary_text: Republican strategists view the Democratic contenders as the weakest in years but concede that President Bush is in trouble because of the economy.
  The President is off to a terrible start; the strategists say he shouldn't apologize so many times about his record.
  Reagan was known as the "Teflon Man" but Bush is the "Velcro Man" who absorbs anything that goes wrong.
  The President is falling in the polls and Pat Buchanan is a threat.
  The best news for the Republicans is that they view the Democratic contenders as unimpressive with Gov. Clinton as the strongest.
  The economy will be the one big issue.