(FORTUNE Magazine) – Could it be that the American electorate just loves to roll over for a big guy who's smooth on TV and can talk like a Republican? President Clinton, who's taken to sounding quite Reaganesque at times during this campaign, now seems all but unstoppable with his fat double-digit lead. But no matter how tempting it is to call this election all but over, it's not. In modern politics, eight weeks is an eternity in which anything can happen--a new war with Iraq, a stock market crash, more Whitewater figures turning state's evidence. And for all its increasing sophistication, polling can be fallible. Michael Dukakis, after all, was 17 percentage points ahead of Vice President George Bush when he left his Atlanta convention in 1988.

From now until November 5, the fight will take place in the states and on the airwaves. The fact that 32 of the nation's governors are Republican helps Bob Dole by giving him a political network he would otherwise have to set up and fund. Another bonus is a quarter-century of affinity for conservatives in the South and the Rocky Mountain States. And while the $61.8 million in federal funds that Dole received once he was nominated is not an advantage--Clinton got the same amount--added to $12 million of released party money, it refueled a campaign engine that had been running on fumes. Within hours of the end of the San Diego convention, Dole's team had his tax-cut plan on the air in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Los Angeles--all key media markets in battleground states.

Clinton, though, is conceding nothing. Indeed, White House staffers have even begun to discuss the implications of a blowout, though not within hearing of the President. He worries most about his team's overconfidence and complacency. The loss of political adviser and call-girl dupe Dick Morris, though a nasty embarrassment, will have little impact on the campaign. Anxious to avoid reminding voters of his old hatchet-man image, Dole does not want to go anywhere near the issue. Besides, unrelenting character assaults aimed directly at Clinton himself have yet to do much damage.

Most important, there's no reason to think that Clinton, who has already said he will continue to speak with Morris and, presumably, listen to his advice, will deviate even slightly from the centrist message and day-to-day strategy that Morris had drafted and implemented before his unceremonious exit. On issues, Clinton will continue to suck oxygen from the Republican tent by hewing tight to the middle ground: modest tax cuts plus budget balancing; welfare reform but with education safety nets; pro-choice women's rights, offset by an anti-anything-goes family-values pitch, including micro-initiatives on teen smoking, curfews, and school uniforms. This approach reflects the biggest lesson the incumbent has learned in office. Huge new initiatives, like health care reform, don't work. Incremental moves, such as the Brady gun-control bill, have a better chance of producing results.

As for nailing down the 270 state-based electoral votes that actually determine victory or defeat, the Morris plan calls for the President to win--as he did in 1992--the three Pacific Rim states (72 electoral votes), then gather another 50 or so votes by picking off one or two states in the Rocky Mountains and a few in the South beyond Arkansas and Tennessee. The slugfest will then come in the traditional battlegrounds: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, which together deliver 96 electoral votes--and each of which has a Republican governor.

Beyond the nitty-gritty of each camp's general strategy and daily messages, five factors will shape the outcome of this election--only a few of which Dole can hope to control. To catch up, he's got to have almost all of the following break his way:

--The debates. There will be three presidential face-offs, plus one for the Veeps, each probably 90 minutes. Clinton is a good debater, Dole notoriously miserable. In 1992 the debate television audience was the largest for any political event in history, 97 million viewers for the third and final presidential debate. What they see and hear matters. According to the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, exit polls in both 1988 and 1992 showed that the debates were the biggest single factor in determining how Americans voted. Michael Deaver, who was Ronald Reagan's image wizard, suggests that Dole adopt the Popeye gambit (you know, "I yam what I yam") and concede from the outset that he's not the talker Clinton is, but he is a doer. Dole can try that in the first debate, scheduled for September 25 in St. Louis, but not each time.

--The economy. August numbers showed it growing at a robust 4.8%, with home sales up almost 8%, the sharpest increase in eight months. The full third-quarter figures, due in mid-October, are the one major set of preelection numbers still to come, but Clinton aides profess to be unworried. "There will be solid growth and low inflation unless something extremely unpredictable happens," declares Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin.

--Foreign affairs. Until Saddam Hussein started bashing Kurds, foreign policy was further on the back burner as an election issue than at any time since the early 1930s. Saddam has an infinite, even perverse, capacity for bad timing and miscalculation. If Clinton responds wisely, his approval ratings could soar, as George Bush's did after the 1991 Gulf war, although a misstep could finally give Dole some traction in the foreign area. Dole will make any U.S. action a leadership question, but he cannot be overly partisan when the villain is such an easy mark. Elsewhere, Clinton has been lucky. U.S. troops have suffered no major casualties in Bosnia or Haiti. Neither new Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu nor Arabs have torpedoed the search for peace. Boris Yeltsin is hanging on in Russia.

--Ross Perot. The billionaire populist grabbed 19% of the vote four years ago, but hardly anyone expects him to crack double figures in November. If Perot appears in the debates, he will distract Dole from challenging the President directly. If not, he still has $29 million in federal funds to spend to get his message across. Dole, who needs every anti-Clinton vote he can get, is the clear loser here.

--The money. This will not affect the presidential race, in which each candidate can spend only his allotted federal funds. But any money Clinton or Dole raises from convention to election may be used for party building and can be funneled through Senate and House campaign committees to underwrite congressional races, a crucial factor with the Republicans' two-year grip on Capitol Hill up for grabs if Dole wipes out. Normally the GOP has a big edge in fundraising, but not this year, when each presidential campaign raised a bit less than $45 million. In soft money, which can be used to promote issues but not federal races, Republicans have pulled in $76 million, more than double what they raised four years ago. Democrats, though, have collected a respectable $65 million--nearly five times their last effort. "Business is convinced Clinton is a lock, so Democratic fundraisers are just taking orders," says David Rubenstein, a Carter Administration aide who now helps run the Republican-heavy Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C., investment firm.

The outlook? If Dole gets lucky and closes the gap to single digits by mid-October, we've got a contest. Otherwise, that sound you'll hear will be the fat lady warming up. The only question then will be which Bill Clinton will show up in the White House once he's no longer running for reelection.