He was running against the putative Republican nominee, George W. Bush, not against his benign Democratic challenger.

Like most putative Presidential nominees, Mr. Perot needs to find someone who helps him with at least one segment of the electorate without hurting him with others.

First, John Kerry, the putative Democratic presidential nominee, decided Sunday not to attend the annual meeting of the nation's mayors here, refusing to cross a picket line of police union members feuding with Boston's mayor.

Halfway to Nomination Having now accumulated more than half of the delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination at the party convention in New York in July, Mr. Clinton appeared to be taking his role as putative nominee seriously.

"We're at a turning point in our country's history," Mr. Gore, the putative Democratic presidential nominee, said in an interview here today.

Even though the election is eight months away, the two putative nominees are already locked in battle, and are trying to define each other.

But Mr. Clinton has continued to win primary elections - most recently in New York, Kansas and Wisconsin - and he now appears to be the Democratic Party's putative nominee.

Mayor James E. McGreevey of Woodbridge, the putative Democratic nominee, didn't call back.

Front runner Mitt Romney also travelled to South Carolina, the third state to pass judgment on the putative nominees.

Ms. Hsia's conviction has kept alive the political embarrassment that the event caused for the vice president, the putative Democratic presidential nominee this year.