USTIN, Texas - George W. Bush remembers shaking hands with Al Gore only a couple of times. Once was in a baseball stadium in Baltimore, and although they sat near each other in a circle of wealthy and powerful friends, the two met only for a second.
Bush, then owner of the Texas Rangers, was in his element: Surrounded by other team owners, watching his favorite game in the world. Gore, newly installed in the vice presidency, swept into the All-Star game and was introduced to Bush, who still recalls that Gore sat with the commissioner of baseball a few rows away.
The exchange involved few words. To this day, Bush said in an interview, he has ''never had a conversation'' with Gore.
Seven years and thousands of bitter words after that encounter, Bush is preparing this weekend to shake hands with Gore once again, assuming they follow custom at the start of the presidential debate on Tuesday. That is about all that should feel familiar to Bush, who has debated a Democrat only twice before, and never with so many people watching.
Yesterday, Bush said he did not expect the event to seem unusual to him, and he expressed no concern about facing off against someone he knows almost entirely from afar. At the same time, the Texas governor did not seem especially intrigued by the prospect of meeting the vice president, an opponent he has dealt with for more than a year.
''I think it's normal. That's what happens when you run for president,'' Bush said. ''You debate your opponent.''
Speaking on board his campaign plane during a flight to his ranch in Crawford, where he began a weekend of intense debate practice last night, Bush said he felt prepared for what is arguably the biggest political moment of his life, short of election night, now less than six weeks away. Admitting he had been ''practicing quite a bit,'' Bush insisted that the best preparation has been the campaign trail, where he has undergone a one-year crash-course in learning how best to articulate his views.
Yet perhaps because he has done so much behind-the-scenes preparation, holding mock debates with Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire since early summer, Bush did not appear particularly nervous. As is his custom, Bush also refrained from sharing any details of the emotional rollercoaster normally associated with studying for a major test, instead describing the process as one he more or less liked.
As for Tuesday, Bush said simply, ''I'm looking forward to it. I have a chance to share my views without a filter.''
He even dismissed the notion that he was reluctant to come to Massachusetts, a liberal state he is sure to lose, saying that he had ''some fond memories of my time going to Harvard Business School.''
''I realize it may be a state I'm not going to landslide my opponent in, but I've got wonderful supporters in the great state of Massachusetts,'' he said.
The sentiments were at odds with virtually every assumption that has been made about Bush and the Boston debate.
After initially balking at the debate schedule proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates, especially the one in Boston, Bush ultimately agreed to attend all three. But the compromise was reached only after a two-week standoff in which the Bush campaign demanded shorter debates on talk shows, instead of in formal settings for broadcast by several networks.
That Bush was fighting the debate schedule convinced many political strategists, including many Republicans, that he was even more uneasy about debating Gore than had been expected. Despite his frequent insistence that he was eager to face the vice president, Bush telegraphed the same disdain for debating as his father, who famously looked as his watch during a presidential debate in 1992. In a recent PBS documentary, former president Bush used the word ''crap'' to describe the debates, saying they were wholly irrelevant to the election process.
Yesterday, the Texas governor said he did not share his father's view, at least not entirely. But he tried to put the debates in perspective, saying they were only one facet of the campaign. He pointed out that the elder Bush, who did not feel well-served by the debates, won the 1988 election anyway.
''That just goes to show debates don't turn the election,'' he said, noting that his father did ''fine'' against former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis.
Yet there is ample evidence that Bush, long plagued by difficulties pronouncing words and constructing coherent sentences, is taking the event seriously. Gregg, the chosen stand-in for Gore, has flown to Texas several times to stage 90-minute debates.
The ''gym,'' a separate facility at Bush's ranch, has been transformed into a debate studio, and Bush communications director Karen Hughes said yesterday she expected them to bring in 48-inch podiums, the exact height of the ones to be used during the real debate. Playing the part of moderator Jim Lehrer is Stuart Stevens, a Bush media adviser who has studied Lehrer's style and preferred line of questioning.
The only thing Bush won't practice is standing before the camera in full debate attire, Hughes said. ''I don't think he needs practice putting a suit on.''
At the same time, Hughes described Gore's debating skills in hyperbolic terms, attempting to raise expectations about how well the vice president will perform. Heaping unprecedented praise on their opponent, Hughes described Gore as a ''world-class debater'' with far greater advantage going into Tuesday.
''He is acknowleged to be the most experienced debater in American politics today, and we expect he'll have some of the best lines Hollywood can write at his disposal during the debate,'' she said. But, she quickly added: ''We believe Governor Bush will more than hold his own by speaking from his heart.''
