"George Bachrach has been a candidate in thisrate for a little over 90 days," she said. "Ithink the poll shows he's an extremely viablecandidate who in nearly three months has been ableto meet or overtake two challengers who have beenin the race for over a year."
But Dwight D. Robson, Roosevelt's assistantpress secretary, said the poll results are notindicative of the candidate's success.
"We knew from the beginning that taking on anincumbent would be an uphill fight," Rooseveltsaid. "When you criticize an incumbent, negativeratings go up."
Robson said negative ratings could simply bethe result of high name recognition.
"A significant number of people don't know thecandidates and are neutral on this," Robson said."With attacking the incumbent, our namerecognition went up significantly."
Representatives of the Barrett and Weldcampaigns were not available for commentyesterday.
The opinion poll was conducted by Maguireassociates of Concord.