t least we can be grateful that neither of them kissed the moderator. The way things are going, anything could have happened.
After all, the target audience of the first debate were the undecideds and three-quarters of the undecided voters are women.
The much vaunted pursuit of the woman voter has been described more as a political romance than a campaign. First there was The Kiss, then cheek-pecking on Oprah. On public radio, a caller actually said women like Gore for his pecs. A politics of pecks and pectorals?
By the time this debate was over, no one - male or female - was suffering from a lack of information. All we needed was some mandatory testing on math.
Gore got a bit ''alpha male'' at times and kept telling us: Here's my plan. Bush got a bit twitchy at times and squirmed under the onslaught of facts and figures. But each guy hung onto to his core message like a life raft.
Life Raft Gore: will we use our prosperity to enrich the wealthiest one percent or all of our families?
Life Raft Bush: They think the money belongs to the government, I think it belongs to the people.
The top issues for women are juggling family and work, equal pay with benefits and TIME. If either candidate had proposed two more hours in the day, he'd have won hands down.
That didn't happen, but both polished their female language. Bush framed tax breaks for single mothers instead of millionaires. Gore spoke to the core belief of the gender gap that government can be a partner.
In 90 minutes, you could see why women are likely to be in motion for a while longer. They're acting like consumers, not lovers. And they're not at the check-out counter yet.
Ellen Goodman's e-mail address is ellengoodman@globe.com.
