AN INVITING SITUATION

By MICHAEL DUFFY

Republican consultant Ed Rollins has a way of getting his clients in trouble. At a roast in California on May 15, Rollins, a part-time volunteer for Bob Dole, suggested that California Democrat Willie Brown might run for mayor of San Francisco -- and not Los Angeles -- because Brown didn't want to let "Hymie boys" from L.A. push him around. It was the kind of gaffe that might have paralyzed a fledgling presidential campaign. But at Dole headquarters in Washington, no one came unhinged. Instead, sources told Time, campaign manager Scott Reed telephoned Rollins last Monday and asked him to step down. Ed Rollins no longer works for the Dole campaign. Simple as that.

Dole has run for President twice before, and it shows. In all the important measures, he is out front: raising ample funds, locking up major endorsements, leading the polls and avoiding self-defeating mistakes. In such key states as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, Dole is well ahead of the competition. He started at the top, of course, but the fact that he is staying there has frustrated the popular wisdom that an early front runner is doomed to fall. This time it's the also-rans who are doing that. His rivals have stumbled and stagnated, which means that each week without a Dole misstep reduces the chances that they will ever catch up. The growing sense that the second tier is fading, however, has raised the prospect that other contenders will jump in, chief among them Newt Gingrich.

So far, no strong runner-up has emerged. California Governor Pete Wilson remained sidelined last week after the removal of a benign nodule from his right vocal cord and missed his staff's planned deadline to enter the race officially by Memorial Day. There is also internal strife: top Wilson aide George Gorton went on "vacation" after Wilson tapped former Bush aide Craig Fuller to run the campaign. Phil Gramm of Texas, still smarting from the disclosure of his R-rated movie endeavor in 1974, has watched his approval ratings stay flat even as he becomes better known. Meanwhile, former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander was embarrassed by his failure so far to get an endorsement, as his aides had touted, from popular Michigan Governor John Engler.

The normally skeptical Dole, returning from a two-day trip last week to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Atlantic City, New Jersey, admitted to a lieutenant, "It feels good out there." This campaign is different from his previous outings. Discipline is now a more regular companion. Prior to his announcement swing in April, Dole spent some time at his Washington headquarters delivering his stump speech to an empty TV studio. He wasn't keen about the idea-and he didn't deliver it very well. But his aides first tested the speech's broad themes with a focus group of Republican men and women in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Next they showed the tape to a "dial group'' of 30 Republicans -- some committed to Dole, some not -- in Cobb County, Georgia. Each was given a hand-held dial to register his or her approval of key passages; all voted 80% approval or more. Officials at other campaigns scoff at the front runner's overcalibration, but the careful market testing has helped Dole move away from talking about process and toward more presidential-sounding themes.

Dole has also begun to tighten his belt. Several of the campaign's top financiers were angry to learn at a Washington meeting earlier this month that the campaign had raised a respectable $8 million but had already spent $4 million. "Dole has 100% name identification," cracked a financier who attended, "but now he wants 150%." Partly in response, Dole will cut back on travel and polling this summer.

The biggest surprise is the way Dole has confounded critics who believed he could not run for President and at the same time meet the conflicting demands of being Senate majority leader. The two jobs work at cross-purposes: G.O.P. hopefuls have to run to the right, which helps explain why Dole took the no-tax pledge in New Hampshire and vowed to help repeal the assault-weapons ban. Majority leaders, meanwhile, have to build links to the party's center to win Senate approval of such measures as the $1 trillion budget that promises some tax cuts but stops short of the $353 billion giveaway favored by Gramm. Candidate Dole's lurch to the right has led him to attempt perilous U-turns, such as his sudden endorsement of moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, that will create fodder for rivals' television commercials early next year. But Dole's job as majority leader keeps him front and center with a general-election audience that distrusts some of the conservative agenda. For now, Dole will stick with the juggling act. As campaign manager Reed puts it, "We continue to think the majority leadership is an asset -- a big asset.''

But not forever. Dole may resign as Senate chief late this year if the right moment comes along, a top Dole adviser says. At present Dole and his aides are considering the possibility of his stepping aside when-and if-he can find the lone vote to pass the balanced-budget amendment that failed in February. "If you go out," says the Dole adviser, "you want to go out on a high note."

Dole's aides admit that June will bring a distracting boomlet in stories and speculation about Newt Gingrich's own plans in 1996. As Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, says, "Newt is not entirely satisfied that the presidential race fully reflects the revitalization [of the party] that he has brought." Gingrich is scheduled to visit 25 cities around the U.S. this summer to promote his new book, To Renew America, whose publisher, HarperCollins, is printing 500,000 copies on the first run. Dole aides say they aren't worried about Gingrich; the House Speaker has assured them privately that he has no plans to run.

But if there's a danger in the Gingrich boomlet, it's that it will raise the Excitement Question: Can Dole generate the electricity needed to motivate masses of voters who are weary of Bill Clinton but may be reluctant to elect a 73-year-old President? One idea floating around the Dole camp is to place Colin Powell on the ticket. Another is to offer Powell, who may be unwilling to settle for the No. 2 job, both the vice presidency and the post of Secretary of State. But that will do little to fend off other G.O.P. hopefuls. Late last week popular Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson formed an exploratory committee for a presidential run. And he could barely contain his excitement.

--WITH REPORTING BY JEFFREY H. BIRNBAUM/WASHINGTON

With reporting by JEFFREY H. BIRNBAUM/WASHINGTON