Her legislative aide, Wayne Wink, attributed the speculation to "morbid wishful thinking" by Republicans.

In the end, his aides attributed the delay not to indecision by Mr. Dole but to unexpected last-minute preparations.

A senior aide to Mr. Berger attributed the delay and inaccuracy to poor staff work and distractions from the bombing of Iraq, which began days before Mr. Berger's reply.

Mostly, though, Mr. Baker's aides attribute his reputation for a clean nose and problem-solving to his doing his homework.

Mr. Bush's aides attribute the state of the presidential race partly to a series of missteps by Mr. Gore over a rocky spring.

Asked if they were concerned about such sentiments, Mr. Bloomberg's aides attributed comments like hers' to the overall frustration over the strike and predicted that they would abate.

Mr. Lazio's aides attribute some of their success to a sense of urgency among Republicans around the country after Mr. Giuliani dropped out.

In addition to last weekend's drenching downpours, the Governor and her aides attributed some of the improvement to New Jerseyans' compliance with the restrictions, which were imposed on Sept. 13.

Legislative aides attributed the vehemence of recent criticism to the nature of the topic.

She and her aides attributed some of the failures to a reorganization mandated by Congress in 1989.