ANCHESTER, N.H. - This was the moment that Governor George W. Bush's dwindling band of opponents had been girding and gunning for, and when it finally came in a shiny Manchester television studio last night, there were few surprises, few missteps, few sparks of drama, and, probably, few altered votes.
But as the end of the beginning of the campaign approaches and the holiday hiatus beckons, the architecture of the Republican race now seems fixed.
Indeed, last night's 90-minute session buttressed the foundation that has been laid in hundreds of luncheon speeches, thousands of dollars' worth of television ads and countless sleepy meetings of activists, pollsters, strategists, producers, schedulers, fund-raisers, and event planners:
The Texas governor - ever steady last night, to the great relief of his nervous handlers - is the favorite, facing an insurrection here in New Hampshire but with significant and perhaps ample forces and resources massed for future contests. Senator John McCain of Arizona - ever the insurgent, on the television stage as by instinct - is the most nimble challenger. Magazine publisher Steve Forbes - ever deliberate, ever forceful, as disciplined in his television performance last night as he is in his barrage of ads - is the true believer with a true fortune to spend.
The rest of the guys are in much the same position they occupied before last night's festivities began. They're still all the rest of the guys.
For months, as the Republican presidential race took form in the town squares and community centers of New Hampshire, a band of GOP rivals took aim at an elusive figure who hovered above the campaign much the way faraway clouds seem to hang over the state's Presidential Range.
Last night, the posse of Republican contenders finally maneuvered Bush into the valley and confronted him in the flesh. He may have been on the defensive, he may have been repetitive, but he survived - and so, too, may the lead he has built in the state and across the country survive.
In debate - a political art form that is stuffed with substance but dominated by style - Bush had one goal, and it was unabashedly, unambiguously and unmistakably stylistic: Don't get ruffled. He didn't. Speaking of ''vision, judgment, and leadership,'' he parried the many thrusts of his rivals, especially Forbes's. He folded in a few of the sort of facts he muffed in his Boston foreign-policy midterm. And he showed mastery of the material if not exactly proving conclusively that he was the master of his own thoughts.
''I gotta be myself,'' he said as he arrived at Manchester's airport late yesterday afternoon. He was. For weeks, Bush has been referring to last night's event as ''game day.'' He may not have won, but he didn't lose.
Neither did McCain, whose rapid rise in the polls has unsettled Bush's advisers and transformed the Feb. 1 primary, the first in the nation, into a contest that has riveted the attention of the infinitesimal political class and may even attract the interest of politics-weary Americans before it is all over. With spirited answers, humor and a full-bore challenge to the underpinnings of the political system, including big money in campaigns and pork in appropriations bills, McCain showed that the campaign may not yet be over - and he suggested that it may not be a full bore, either.
''Those of us ... who stand in independent fashion,'' he said, ''are going to break some china.''
Forbes, with the most to spend on his campaign and often the most of substance to say, preserved his ability to affect the course of the primary season, if perhaps not to emerge victorious from it. He entered the debate needing to show that his heft as a political force was as big as his treasury and his intellect. He also needed to cut Bush down to size. So Forbes focused his aim all night at Bush, just as he has on the airwaves and on the campaign trail. At one point he called the governor ''AWOL'' for missing earlier debates - but then found himself at the receiving end of a barb, as Bush quoted Forbes's own words to rebuff criticism of Bush's Social Security plan.
Last night's session was a major moment for the minor candidates, who showed that while their ability to win votes may be small, their ability to win rhetorical points is considerable.
Gary Bauer, the social activist who this week announced he wouldn't even compete in New York and who will almost certainly depart the race if he doesn't finish among the top three in caucuses in Louisiana and Iowa and the primary in New Hampshire, nonetheless forced the issue of abortion onto the Republican menu. Bush and McCain would prefer it be kept on ice, but Bauer repeatedly argued that he wanted ''our unborn children [to be] part of the American family.''
Former ambassador Alan Keyes, moreover, put a moral cast on the proceedings, a role he plays with brio. Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah displayed comprehensive knowledge of how Washington works, providing a contrast to the self-proclaimed ''outsiders'' who dominate the race at year's end. The minor candidates may not win, but their effect on the debate - last night's debate as well as the broader political debate - is likely to be bigger than their vote totals. In the end they will likely go away. Their issues and their emphases will not.
