Little ventured, little gained--the first Gore-Bush debate featured both candidates at their usual. No breakouts, no bold thrusts. The face-off reflected the narrow parameters of the campaign, with Al Gore and George W. Bush jabbing at each other on a small number of poll-tested fronts--a drug prescription plan for the elderly, Social Security and education. (There was, for example, no discussion of trade-related matters or how to provide healthcare to uninsured adults and children.) Prior to the much-hyped event, blacked out by Fox and NBC (the latter eventually said local affiliates could show it), the bearers of conventional wisdom had decided Gore's task was to show he was more likable than his caricature and Bush's challenge was to persuade undecided voters he was more presidential (read: not dumb) than his late-night-talk-show image. Ninety minutes of back-and-forth demonstrated that neither could easily recast himself, which is, ultimately, somewhat reassuring. A smuggish Gore was trying too hard to show he's smart as a whip; an edgy Bush was trying too hard to prove he's not a lightweight. It wasn't pretty to watch.

When the debate ended, it was hard to tell if it had mattered. Each contestant had, with limited eloquence, played familiar refrains. Gore offered a Clinton-like New/Old Democrat mix: Balance the budget, pay down the debt, protect Medicare and Social Security, cut taxes for some middle-class families, protect children against "cultural pollution," invest in the environment. Bush, who had earlier branded himself "a different kind of Republican," dished out his own New/Old Republican stew. He led with a GOP classic, his tax cut for all ("I'm not going to be a pick-and-chooser"). He pushed his plan to privatize part of Social Security and blasted Gore for being an inside-the-Beltway, big-government liberal eager to unleash 20,000 new bureaucrats on the citizenry. Then Bush championed his own education and drug prescription proposals and soft-pedaled his antiabortion stand.

Gore boasted that his economic plan devotes more of the coming surpluses to the military than Bush's budget. Bush spent more time discussing Medicare than any previous GOP presidential candidate. In the Clinton era, both parties engage in political copyright infringement. On points--as they say--Gore probably won. The semi-sanctimonious know-it-all effectively attacked Bush's various proposals, noting repeatedly that Bush's tax cut benefits the well-to-do. Bush hardly soared when discussing foreign policy, national security and how to handle a financial crisis. (Get me Greenspan!) Yet a less-smirkful Bush spoke in complete sentences and avoided the worst Bushisms. (He did say of Social Security, "I want you to have your own assets that you can call your own.") Those predisposed to either could find reasons to stick with their man; those caught in between or disgusted with both were still out of luck.

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