Third debate ends, but who will it be, Gore or Bush?

A USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll showed people who watched the debate thought — by a 46 per cent to 44 per cent margin — that Gore did a better job. But that was small comfort for a man who is being given a run for his money by a Republican candidate whose intellectual depth and grasp of issues is widely perceived to be suspect.

The scene for the last of three debates, this time in a town-hall meeting format, was a red-carpeted stage at Washington University in St.Louis, Missouri, which is considered another key swing state that both candidates are desperate to capture. Some 140 undecided voters threw a variety of questions at the candidates who meandered across the stage answering them in an informal and often colloquial style.

Gore stressed his vast experience in government and pledged to work for the middle-class and working-class Americans while trying to paint Bush and the Republicans as profligates who would side with the rich. He also referred to the eight years of economic growth during the Clinton-Gore era, a positive some pundits said he had failed to emphasise enough in the first two debates.

Bush stressed his credentials as a Washington outsider, an attribute that has great resonance in Middle America that sees the Washington politician as a dissolute, money-grubbing, special interests-pandering representative. He promised his usual bag of goodies, tax-cuts, down-sized government, and a stronger military.

But more than the verbal jousting, pundits keenly watched the body language of the two men to go beyond the public mask.

Gore, who was seen as too aggressive in the first debate and too passive in the second, reverted to his original stance, and trampled all over Bush. Encyclopaedic in his grasp of issues and depth of knowledge, he peppered the audience and Bush with a mountain of statistics and information.

Bush was more general — and sometimes vapid — and was careful not to make any major faux pas in a format pundits said suited Gore more given his longer experience in public-speaking and engagement. Some recalled the turning point in the 1992 campaign, when the senior George Bush, being worsted in a town-hall debate by a smooth-talking Bill Clinton, stole a look at his watch. Captured on camera, that moment destroyed his bid for a second term.

But George W. held his own here — neither delivering any knockout lines nor fumbling, leaving Gore to be more pro-active in his search for votes and support.

Gore tried, and in the process he sometimes came across as a hectoring bully and a preachy pundit. Once he walked close to Bush, his booming voice and aggressive body language seeming to overpower a more timid Bush. That moment captured the essense of the face-off and was dissected by the talking heads hours after the event.

“While Bush was again warmer and more genuine, Gore found a way to resurrect his alpha male, unbuttoning his jacket, taking off his gloves. Taunting Bush with his body language was great theater, almost enough to compete with the Yankee-Mariner game,” one communications expert commented.

The game reference was to the baseball world series that was also in progress last night. The debates typically have attracted poor viewership with neither candidate capable of invoking the drama or the smooth oratory of Bill Clinton.

With all three debates now behind them, the two candidates return to the campaign trail which is a pretty mild and modest effort compared to India’s rumbustious election melas. The message from the two sides will now go mainly through television and radio ads.