Is It All Over? Not quite.

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

The dread moment for a political campaign comes when reporters, and sometimes ordinary citizens, start asking whether the candidate has already lost and the actual vote has become a formality. That nadir arrived for Michael Dukakis early last week. Following his lackluster performance in the second debate with George Bush, stories appeared that the Duke had effectively written off most of the country to concentrate his last desperate efforts on 18 states with 272 electoral votes -- a mere two over the number required for victory -- in which he still had a chance. The reports were denied, but not very convincingly. One poll taken immediately after the debate placed Dukakis 17 points behind Bush, a margin that would be insurmountable in the short time left. Speculation turned to the possibility of a Bush landslide -- and the fourth Democratic disaster in the past five elections.

But what candidate worth his matching funds would give up, even on a campaign as lifeless as this one has appeared? And by week's end the campaign's vital signs showed a continuing heartbeat and respiration. Dukakis was at last electioneering with something approaching passion, and winning favorable TV and press attention. A new spate of polls showed that Bush's lead had settled back to between 7 and 10 points, about the margin before the debate. This late in the game, that is a daunting but not quite hopeless deficit. Reasonably objective observers, some of them Republican, reached the same conclusion: Dukakis can still come back, and he even has a longshot chance to win.

"It's doable," says Norman Ornstein, a campaign analyst for the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "Clearly, for all his horrible problems, Dukakis remains within striking distance." Richard Wirthlin, pollster for the White House and the Republican National Committee, states flatly, "Dukakis can still win." As evidence that 10-point swings in the last weeks of a campaign can happen, he points to the 1980 election: as late as Oct. 20, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were even, but Reagan won by 9.7 points. Wirthlin, perhaps to pump up the G.O.P. troops, puts Dukakis' chances of bringing off a similar turnabout as 1 in 3; more cold-eyed analysts think those odds are overly generous.

Yet it is probably too late, and Dukakis is probably too far behind to turn the election around on his own. He needs an outside event to open a window. Some Bush strategists contend that only a serious illness or injury to the Vice President could give Dukakis the edge. But something a bit less spectacular could probably provide the opportunity: a serious Bush stumble, an international embarrassment or a sudden stock-market bust.

Despite his formidable lead, Bush has not really turned on the voters. Pollsters find that voters are choosing him without enthusiasm, like restaurant patrons picking succotash over turnips. Bush thus remains vulnerable to any event that could cause people to doubt his character or judgment. His running mate, Dan Quayle, is still a drag. Though elections are not decided on the qualities of the vice-presidential candidates, this campaign has the feel of an exceptional one in which significant numbers of voters are disturbed by the possibility of a President Quayle. Some 54% of those questioned in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll published last week thought Quayle was a bad choice.

There is also still a chance that blacks and Hispanics will turn out for the Democrats in at least their usual numbers. Dukakis has not exactly galvanized them, and polls show him trailing previous Democratic contenders among blacks. In addition, it is getting very late to put on a big get-out-the-vote drive. But as the slugging reaches its climax, many blacks and Hispanics are likely to be reminded of their traditional opposition to the Republicans. Finally, there is a factor difficult to evaluate but potentially important: the press and TV love the drama of a close election. Having come near to writing Dukakis off, the media can be expected in the campaign's final days to search out and perhaps magnify any signs of Democratic revival.

Dukakis last week finally gave them something to picture and write about. After months of campaigning like an incumbent, with only a few events a day, he is now at last running like a challenger, spending up to 14 hours a day on the stump. Bush is going in the opposite direction; one day last week he relaxed and worked in his hotel room all morning and did not hit the campaign trail until noon. If the Republicans have hit cruising speed, though, they won't admit it. "Watch how fast we go and where we go -- we're not letting up," Bush told reporters. "The worst thing I could do would be to show a complacency I don't feel."

Barnstorming by bus across the Midwest, one of the areas he must concentrate on, Dukakis got off to a bad start. Playing a weak Call to the Post on a trumpet in Euclid, Ohio, the Governor was mercifully drowned out by a professional band. But on Tuesday in Michigan, something started to click. At Arthur Hill High School in Saginaw, Dukakis clenched his fist, then opened his arms wide, palms uplifted, to welcome the crowd. He delivered a clear populist message: "George Bush cares about the people on Easy Street. I care about the people on Main Street. He's on their side. I'm on your side."

Though Dukakis had long resisted making such an appeal because of its "divisive" overtones of class war, it is about his only chance now. "He should set up as many 'them vs. us' formulas as he can," says Democratic pollster Peter Hart. Amazingly, it has been the Republicans, led by preppy Bush, who have succeeded in painting Dukakis and his followers as a bunch of Harvard-Brookline liberal elitists. The Democrats' failure to capitalize on latent populist resentment, says a senior Bush campaign aide, "is the biggest surprise of the campaign. They just never figured it out."

Dukakis hit his emotional peak at a rally in Quincy, Ill., where he brought along brochures mailed to voters by the state Republican Central Committee. One asserted that "all the murderers and rapists and drug pushers and child molesters in Massachusetts vote for Michael Dukakis." Angrily waving one of the pamphlets over his head, Dukakis growled, "Friends, this is garbage. This is political garbage. This isn't worthy of a political campaign." All during the week he spoke with feeling about two crime victims he knew well: his father, a doctor, who was once bound, gagged and beaten in his office by an addict looking for drugs, and his brother Stelian, killed by a hit-and-run driver. "I know something about crime," he said. "I don't need any lectures from George Bush on the subject."

Still, Dukakis' campaign was dogged by bad luck. On Wednesday the Dow Jones industrial average fell 20 points in 15 minutes because of a false rumor that the Washington Post was about to publish a report charging Bush with marital infidelity. The dive illustrated how deeply the financial community fears a Dukakis victory. The next day the Duke had to fire Donna Brazile, one of the campaign's highest-ranking blacks, because she had recklessly told the press that Bush ought to "fess up" to the sexual allegations, which have never been substantiated. At the very moment when he was trying to mount a consistent attack, Dukakis found himself apologizing to Bush as they met face- to-face in New York City at the annual Al Smith dinner.

Dukakis has one other card left to play. In the final fortnight, he is counting on that frequent, and sometimes effective, tactic of a losing candidate: the TV blitz. The campaign has already thrown out his old spots and begun running new ones that feature Dukakis talking quietly and directly to the American people about his views. That too will be the approach of a series of five-minute spots that began airing over the weekend. Dukakis even plans to get his message out in one or more 30-minute addresses, although that ploy will probably send viewers scrambling for Moonlighting.

The Democrats hope to grab all the free time they can to make up for Bush's refusal to engage in another debate. Last week Dukakis agreed to a 90-minute interview on ABC's Nightline to air Tuesday, to be preceded by a five-minute live, paid appearance on NBC, during which he intends to accuse Bush of lying about his record on crime. There is, of course, no guarantee that this effort will work. Bush's campaign has saved about half of its federal campaign funds for late TV and radio ads, and plans to stage as large a blitz as Dukakis. So far, Bush has won the battle of the ads hands down; his latest spot effectively ridicules Dukakis' September ride in a tank.

As this seemingly endless campaign enters its final weeks, Dukakis' greatest worry is no longer Bush. His biggest enemy is time. He must also overcome a final, somewhat unexpected hurdle: Ronald Reagan. A number of polls, led by TIME's in late September, show the President's approval ratings rising again into the 60% range. That indicates a mood of public contentment that would be difficult for the most brilliantly planned and executed political appeal to overcome. Dukakis has at last got going, and shortened the odds a bit. The campaign is still alive -- but barely, and even this late infusion of adrenaline may not be enough.

With reporting by Dan Goodgame with Bush and Michael Riley with Dukakis