President Bush's top political strategists believe that he can win a second term even if most Americans are dissatisfied with their incomes and worried about their job prospects.

Throughout the first three nights of the Republican National Convention, speakers have largely bypassed current economic issues that voters say are a powerful factor in their mind and that Democrats have called Bush's greatest vulnerability.

Unidentified conventioneers cheer during Zell Miller's speech at the Republican National Convetion Wednesday night. The Democratic senator was the keynote speaker and is endorsing President Bush. (Jonathan Newton -- The Washington Post).

On Wednesday night, Vice President Cheney devoted one paragraph of a 32-paragraph speech to the economy, arguing that "businesses are creating jobs, people are returning to work. ...The Bush tax cuts are working."

Jobs and the economy received no more notice on the first two nights, despite a Washington Post poll showing those issues rank No. 1 for far more voters than Iraq or terrorism in deciding their November vote.

Matthew Dowd, the pollster for the Republican National Committee and an adviser to the White House, said in an interview Wednesday that the negative ratings Bush received on his handling of the economy -- with 52 percent disapproval and 45 percent approval in the Post-ABC News poll -- does not represent a major threat to his reelection effort.

"There's a lot of people out there who say, 'I think the country is on the wrong track' or 'I'm not satisfied with this economy,' but 'when I look at these two men, I'd rather have George Bush in charge than John Kerry.' " Support for his view can be found in responses to another question in the poll.

When voters were asked who would do a better job of handling the economy, Bush and Kerry were in a statistical tie, with 48 percent naming the incumbent and 47 percent the Democratic challenger.

But some leading Republicans have said that they are worried about a possible voter backlash to economic conditions and that Bush must defend his record on the economy in his Thursday night acceptance speech. A number of second-tier speakers began defending the Bush economic record Wednesday night.

Rep. Rob Portman (Ohio), a Bush intimate from a state that has been hit hard by the loss of manufacturing jobs, said that while overall numbers have begun to improve, "there is an anxiety out there. There is a nervousness about the new economy."

"We have not explained the changes that have taken place," he said. "The president has to lay out his agenda for keeping the economy growing."

One reason the speakers have steered away from the economy is that Bush has reserved to himself any detailed discussion of that agenda. Officials expect him to commit to further reforms -- and reductions -- in taxes and to a Social Security revision that would allow younger workers to use some of their payroll taxes to establish personal savings accounts.

But the specifics of these plans -- if they exist -- are closely guarded.In warm-up speeches before the TV network coverage began Wednesday night, Portman and others made the case that Bush inherited a weak economy but has turned it around by combining tax cuts with efforts to expand exports and improve job training.

To find a striking example, they went to Hawaii -- a state whose economy is as closely tied to Japan as to the mainland United States. Gov. Linda Lingle (R) said her state "was mired in economic stagnation throughout the 1990s" but now "has turned around dramatically." Unemployment has dropped to 3 percent, she said, "construction and real estate are booming . . . and 2004 may well go down as the best year for tourism we've ever seen."

Portman and Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) also argued that the economy was "sliding toward recession" before Bush came to office and now, as Ryan put it, "is strong and growing stronger." The two legislators and Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao cited a growth of 1.5 million jobs in the past year. But payrolls remain 1.1 million jobs short of where they were when Bush took office.

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