he quality of authenticity - supposedly so in demand by the voters of their leaders - has not been much in evidence this campaign year. Even last night's ''town meeting'' debate, designed to connect the presidential candidates to the concerns of ''real people,'' had a certain staged aspect.
Still, the format of questions from uncommitted Missouri voters produced a richer, more varied discussion than in the first two encounters, and it played to the strengths of Vice President Al Gore.
After two lackluster performances, Gore managed last night to explain his proposals crisply and at the same time describe a larger vision for his presidency. Repeatedly he said ''I see a time'' when the world is at peace, when all schools are excellent, when America leads by example. He had a ringing response to a question about apathy among the young.
And he brought home the differences between himself and Governor George W. Bush - on hate crimes, on affirmative action, on a patients' bill of rights, on campaign finance reform, on taxes.
Gore's most effective moment may have come when he described a wide arc around the auditorium and said that the tax cut offered by Bush to everyone in the room combined would not equal the tax cut for a single person in the wealthiest 1 percent.
Bush, by contrast, was vague and unfocused. His vaunted charm and humor were not often on display, but his tendency to ramble was. The outsider role he played against Washington has its appeal, but it did not wear well when it seemed to become an omnibus answer to any question that stalled him.
Two difficult moments came for Bush, once on affirmative action and later when he was asked if he took pride in the fact that Texas holds the record in executions. The governor's effort to assure the questioner that everyone put to death in Texas had been given equal access to the law is belied by a study released just this week by the Texas Defender Service.
It is unfortunate that Gore's support for capital punishment prevented him from probing that record further, because it is not just about the death penalty but about race, justice, and redemption.
Beginning today both camps will fill the air with a clutter of competing counterclaims. Each candidate will be found to have used an old number or imprecise analogy. But Gore's superior command of the issues and mechanics of government and, yes, what Bush derided as ''the fine print'' was fully on display on a broad swath of concerns to the voters. After months of isolation in a campaign bubble, last night's encounter brought the candidates to the people. And Gore met them.
