There's even a Super Bowl of sorts, two debates in one night, later in January.

The crowded lineup of debates, nine so far with at least eight more already on the campaign calendar, is not new business. There were even more of them in 1988, the last time both major party nominations were contested without an incumbent president running.

But there is a difference this time: debates that would have been state fare then are national performances now. Cable news networks are promoting and televising almost every forum held.

So what plays in New Hampshire, for the first presidential primary on Feb. 1, plays in Iowa, too, where party caucuses on Jan. 24 will be the first voting of the campaign year. And everywhere else, too.

The debate doubleheader is scheduled between the opening contests, Jan. 26, in Manchester, 90 minutes of Republican debate at WMUR-TV, followed by an hour between the Democrats. There's a 30-minute break, time to shuffle the chairs in the studio.

Vice President Al Gore and challenger Bill Bradley have debated three times so far, in sharpening tones. They're up again on Jan. 5 in Durham, N.H.

A night later, Gov. George W. Bush, Sen. John McCain and the four candidates trying to overtake them are debating in the same hall. There have been six GOP debates all told, but Bush skipped the first three.

His campaign plan had been to avoid them all until January when, he used to say, people would be paying attention. But enough people paid early attention to the campaign to make McCain a threat to the front-runner, especially in New Hampshire, where polls now show him narrowly ahead.

And Bush changed tactics. He pleaded scheduling conflicts to explain his absence from the first GOP debates, then faced the field in three forums, in Manchester, N.H.; Des Moines, Iowa; and Phoenix.

He's on for four more in January.

Gore has been on a debate kick, constantly demanding more, and while Bradley rebuffs that, they're down for at least another five. Gore began by challenging Bradley to debates every other week and now has upped it to twice a week until the Democratic nomination is settled.

"For 10 months you ignored me," Bradley replied. "Suddenly I started to do better, and you want to debate every day. It's ridiculous."

Debate audiences are dwarfed by network entertainment show ratings. But their 1.6-million-viewer average audiences are a boon for cable news networks. Ratings were up sharply when CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC televised campaign debates. The Democrats have had two major network airings, on ABC's "Nightline," and NBC's "Meet the Press."

There have been neither breakthroughs nor blunders in the debates so far, no episodes to either lift or drag down a candidate. Not for lack of effort by Gore; his latest debate venture was to challenge Bradley to agree to stop television advertising and spend close to full time debating. Bradley scornfully dismissed that as a Gore gimmick.

McCain, incidentally, tried a gimmick of his own to help distinguish himself from the rest of the Republican pack. He challenged Gore to debate him about the nuclear test ban treaty the Senate rejected. Gore declined that one.

Bush tends to answer debate questions with passages from his set campaign speeches, even when they don't quite fit. And while his GOP critics complain about it, that's essentially what his rivals do, too. Debates are not settings for new proposals; candidates deliver those when they can't be interrupted. As the leading Republican, Bush has not been arguing much. But he's said he'll be showing a feistier side from now on to underscore his policy differences with McCain.

But primary debates seldom have been good theater. In 1988, there were constant Democratic debates; Michael Dukakis, the Massachusetts governor who got the nomination, was involved in 21. George Bush, then vice president, was in seven against Republican rivals that year. All were as forgettable as any canceled TV series. Bush, the current candidate's father, won his single term as president that year.

Televised debates between presidential nominees date from 1960, but the tactics of one candidate or the other blocked debates in the next three general election campaigns. By then, TV debates had become part of the primary campaign fare, especially at the start of the season, among multiple candidates, not one on one as in the Gore-Bradley series this time.

One of the more memorable moments wasn't televised. No TV cameras were there the night in 1980 when Ronald Reagan commandeered the debate microphone against the elder Bush and cemented the impression that he was the man in charge. That's what counted; nobody paid much attention to what he and Bush said in the debate that followed.

He'd paid for the microphone, Reagan snapped. He had, hiring the Nashua, N.H., hall and financing the forum.

It was a good investment. It cost his campaign less than $3,500.