REPUBLICAN DEBATE Here are the particulars of tonight's Republican presidential candidates debate. WHO: Gary Bauer, George W. Bush, Steve Forbes, Orrin Hatch, Alan Keyes, John McCain. WHEN: Monday, Jan. 10, 7 p.m.-8:30 p.m. EST. WHERE: Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Mich. SPONSORS: WOOD-TV of Grand Rapids and Kent County (Mich.) Republican Party. MODERATOR: NBC's Tim Russert. PANEL: Rick Albin and Suzanne Geha of WOOD-TV. COVERAGE: Live on MSNBC, C-SPAN, National Public Radio. MORE COVERAGE Republicans shift focus to foreign policy, free trade Candidates ruminate on a time capsule Truth Squad: Some overreaching rhetoric Excerpts from debate

They just wish the candidates would be more careful with their rhetoric and stop speaking the shorthand that only the political class understands.

A "no-tax pledge" advocated by several Republicans, for example, is understood in Washington to mean either no new taxes or no higher tax burden overall. But to everyone else it might sound like taxes would go away.

Only the politically attuned might realize that when Democrat Al Gore speaks in debates, ads and speeches of a nation with universal health care, his own program does not achieve that goal.

Beyond such specifics, many of the campaigns' claims have been made without the context that presidents have limited powers. Bedrock promises such as Republican George W. Bush's tax cuts and Democrat Bill Bradley's health plan depend on Congress as well as on economic forces out of their control.

"They seem to presume that we're in an economic condition that will last forever," says Wayne Fields, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis who studies rhetoric.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, has been closely following the primary debates for The Associated Press, helping to check them for misrepresentation, exaggeration and mistakes.

An overarching problem she sees is that the candidates are promising things they cannot alone deliver and taking credit for things they did not alone achieve.

The flat tax promised by Republican Steve Forbes cannot be imposed at the will of a president. In taking credit for reduced juvenile crime in Texas, Gov. Bush ignores that such crime is down nationally.

"There are limits to the office (of president) and we have to acknowledge that," Jamieson said. "Part of what I think seeds cynicism in politics is that someone 'promised me he would do this.' He meant to promise he'd try very hard."

"All of these claims should be heard that way, though they're not voiced that way."

In Monday night's debate in Michigan, Bush took credit for a $1 billion tax cut the Texas Legislature approved after rejecting his plan to cut taxes overall by three times as much.

"I laid out a plan that cut $1 billion in property taxes," he asserted. Bush was defending himself against accusations that he broke a pledge not to raise taxes by advancing the plan -- which would have raised some sales and business taxes in return for a larger total cut.

It doesn't take a political junkie to know that Republican Gary Bauer sent the hyperbole meter into the red zone when he promised last week to eliminate the fear of rape by putting rapists in jail longer. "America's women wouldn't have to worry about it," he said flatly.

But when GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch declared: "I've worked with every federal judge in the last 23 years," few could know he was speaking about his role in approving judicial appointments on the Judiciary Committee -- not as some sort of super judge who gets around the country a lot.

"They forget that the person who is watching this debate and is otherwise involved in a life outside politics doesn't have the same set of assumptions," Jamieson said.

Still, she and others who watch political communications say the debates and even the 30-second advertising spots are providing critical information.

"Spots are really important and even though they're short, voters learn from them," said Bill Benoit, a communication professor at the University of Missouri.

They learn through the ads, debates and stump speeches of Bush's stature as the only Republican with executive experience in government, and of rival John McCain's brave, chilling past as a Vietnam prisoner of war.

"Anything that makes them stand up and talk is useful," Fields says.

But only marginally useful, in his mind, at a stage when he says Gore and Bradley are overreaching to draw distinctions between each other and the Republican debates are crowded with candidates who won't be standing much longer.

Amid all the chatter, some misrepresentations persist, in some cases arising more from what is not said than from what is.

Gore takes credit for helping to pass what he calls the most significant gun control legislation in a generation. Yet the Senate legislation for which he cast the tie-breaking vote did not become law.

At the same time, Gore is coming under attack in a Republican National Committee ad for a position on gays in the military that he has already changed.