week ago, it took nearly an hour for Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush of Texas to raise eyebrows about the veracity of their claims about each other.
Last night, it took just minutes: To the very first question, Gore said Bush does not support a strong patient's bill of rights. Bush said he pushed through just such a law in Texas.
Bush was wrong. He opposed the legislation.
Not long after that, Gore became so passionate in his defense of public education that he declared, ''Most schools are excellent'' - an assessment that is not supported by many parents or by standardized test scores.
Fielding questions from voters, in a format many thought would inhibit confrontation, the two candidates seemed to spend as much time poking holes in each other's positions as they did etching their disparate visions for the government's role.
But often enough, the facts eluded the two would-be presidents:
Patient's bill of rights
''I support a strong national patient's bill of rights,'' Gore said just after the debate began. ''It's actually a disagreement between us.''
Not so, Bush retorted. ''I brought Republicans and Democrats together [to] do just that in the state of Texas to get a patients' bill of rights through,'' he said.
In fact, in 1995 Bush vetoed a patient's bill of rights in Texas, one that contained many of the provisions that he praised last night: report cards on health maintenance organizations, liberal emergency room access, and the elimination of a gag clause forbidding doctors from telling patients about more costly treatment options than HMO coverage.
At the time, Bush said these provisions would be too costly to business.
Bush did sign some of the provisions into law two years later. But he opposed the right to sue HMOs in court, a right last night he termed ''interesting.'' But a bipartisan, veto-proof majority in the Texas Legislature supported the right to sue. Bush let the provision go into law without his signature.
But Gore's assertion that the federal legislation he favors is bipartisan does not meet the Washington definition of bipartisanship. A majority of Republicans are against it, and a GOP alternative passed in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Education
In addition to putting a higher gloss on the quality of public schools than might be warranted, Gore also overstated the generosity of the tax benefit he favors for families saddled with college tuition.
''I want to give every middle-class family a $10,000-a-year tax deduction for college tuition,'' the vice president said. Under existing law, there is a tax credit for most of those families. Gore's actual proposal would increase the current tax savings by several hundred dollars.
Crime
Bush boasted that since he has been governor, violent crime in Texas has gone down. But just this week, the latest federal statistics, comparing 1999 with 1998 crime, show that all crime increased in 12 large Texas cities.
Affirmative Action
In response to one question, Bush embraced diversity, finishing his answer by declaring his support for ''affirmative access.'' When Gore accused Bush of opposing affirmative action, Bush said he is against only quotas.
In fact, Bush has opposed racial preferences. And he endorses the GOP platform, which opposes affirmative action programs.
Federal spending
In an assertion likely to confuse voters, Bush charged that Gore's spending proposals are three times what President Clinton proposed eight years ago. But back then, federal spending was constrained by the federal deficit, which has been wiped out during Clinton's terms.
While Bush is correct that Gore's spending proposals exceed his, the combination of Bush's spending plans and tax cuts would eat up more of the surplus than Gore would with his more modest tax cut and his larger spending plans.
To further complicate matters, Bush said Gore's spending proposals are greater than the combination of what Democrats Walter F. Mondale and Michael S. Dukakis proposed in 1984 and 1988, respectively. However, it appears Bush arrived at the number by using inflation-adjusted spending proposals from the two Democratic candidates and comparing them with estimates of Gore's spending plans prepared by partisan groups such as the Republican staff of the Senate Budget Commitee. Gore's total spending, according to the campaign, would be about $88 billion a year, not the $127 billion the Bush camp contends. Nevertheless, the accusation is familiar as the sort of line that a fellow Texan, Senator Phil Gramm, sought to use against Clinton in 1992.
Prescription drugs
Gore, in criticizing the pharmaceutical industry, said they ''are now spending more money on advertising and promotion - you see all these ads - than they are on research and development.''
Not true. In 1999, according to several studies and drug industry statistics, the pharmaceutical industry spent about $14 billion on advertising and promotion. Most of it went toward pitching various drugs to individual doctors and hospitals. The TV and print ads that Gore referred to cost them about $2 billion of that total.
However, the industry spent about $24 billion on research and development.
Health Insurance
In another exchange, Gore charged that under Governor Bush, Texas ranked dead last among the 50 states ranked by the percentage of uninsured residents. According to the latest census data, Texas ranks 49th.
Kathleen Hennrikus and David Abel of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
