T. LOUIS - The third and final debate between Al Gore and George W. Bush will feature questions from an audience of uncommitted voters, and Paul G. Kirk Jr. says it's a fitting cap to a process that was aimed at the undecided all along.
Bush tried to shape this year's debates to his liking, and Gore has emerged from the first two with his poll numbers flat. Ralph Nader and Patrick J. Buchanan, two third-party candidates, continue to protest being left out.
Yet Kirk, the Boston lawyer and former Democratic National Committee chairman who helped arrange the debates in his capacity as cochairman of the Commission on Presidential Debates, asserts the face-offs will offer the roughly 10 percent of voters who remain uncommitted the information and perspective that will help settle Campaign 2000.
''It's not as if any particular debate proved dispositive or disqualifying, but I will bet that by the time the analysis of this election is written, people will say that a lot of what they made their decision from was the information that emerged in the debates,'' Kirk said yesterday.
''The big thing is not the commission but that the American people are getting an unfiltered look at the candidates in a way they aren't otherwise able to,'' he added.
Such a vital role for the debates seemed in doubt just a month ago.
The commission, a bipartisan structure created in 1987 to eliminate bickering about how, when, and where presidential contenders should debate, announced in early January that it would sponsor three events: Oct. 3 at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, Oct. 11 at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, and tonight at Washington University in St. Louis. A debate for the vice presidential candidates was Oct. 13 at Centre College in Danville, Ky.
Gore, the Democratic candidate, accepted the schedule in March. Bush, the Republican nominee, balked until Sept. 3, when he proposed three presidential and two vice presidential debates. He proposed having his first two meetings with Gore on TV talk shows, with only the third conducted under commission auspices.
After Bush was roundly criticized for his intransigence, both sides met with Kirk and his cochairman, Republican Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., on Sept. 14. The two announced they would not compromise on the commission's proposal, after which the Bush team dropped its objections.
Today, it's as if there were never a problem.
''We're indeed satisfied,'' said Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer. ''I think the commission members conducted themselves professionally and conscientiously.''
Gore spokesman Chris Lehane said, ''I don't think we'll ever know how all the debates influenced the election until they're done and we've been able to measure their effectiveness in totality, but I think in terms of how the commission has run them, they've done an excellent job.''
Two problems that have plagued the debates this year are comparatively low TV ratings and complaints about excluding Nader, the longtime consumer advocate and Green Party candidate, and Buchanan, the former TV commentator and Reform Party contender.
The commission's rules state that no candidate without at least 15 percent support in national public opinion surveys is allowed to take the stage in its events. Neither Nader nor Buchanan has broken out of single digits.
''I think it strikes a fair balance between letting people in and giving the public the best look at the people with the best chance of winning,'' he said.
Kirk said that with the public tuning out the party conventions and expressing increasing distaste for endless campaign ads, the commission debates will continue to play a critical role.
''This is the only kind of widely viewed, widely televised event,'' he said. ''I still think it is the most informative voter education process we have in our system.''
