At a Mississippi riverside campaign stop, Gore even used a somewhat wonkish speech on tax and health care policy as a rallying cry.

"I'm giving you specifics before the election because I'm not afraid for you to know the facts," the presidential nominee cried out. "Do you want specifics?"

"Yea!" replied the crowd of some 1,000 people.

Behind Gore and Lieberman, a new campaign banner debuted: "The Dream Team -- Full Steam Ahead."

The Gore campaign also plans to begin airing new biographical ads this week. The TV spots are set for many of the 17 states where the Democratic National Committee has spent nearly $30 million on a summer ad campaign.

Just before the pair and their wives disembarked from their rented campaign boat, The Mark Twain, CBS News released new poll numbers to give the Democrats reason to beam. Consistent with other national polls in the afterglow of last week's Democratic National Convention, Gore picked up 10 points to essentially tie the race, 43-42 over Republican George W. Bush in a four-way race including Ralph Nader at 5 percent and Pat Buchanan at 1.

More dramatic, Gore's favorability rating shot up to 45 percent -- even with Bush and at its highest level since campaign fund-raising questions began to dog the Democrat in 1997. Earlier this month, after the GOP convention, Gore was favorably viewed in the CBS survey by just one-third of respondents compared with Bush's 48 percent.

Candidates tend to spurt upward right after their conventions, as Bush and Dick Cheney did earlier this month.

Monday's Democratic focus was on tax cuts.

In an issue forum on The Mark Twain's upper deck, Gore and Lieberman told two dozen area residents that targeted relief is the fair way to cut taxes.

Gore's $500-billion package over 10 years offers write-offs and tax credits for child care, long term care, college tuition savings and retirement investments.

Bush wants to reduce income tax rates to a tune of $1 trillion over 10 years. He also would double the $500 tax credit for each child and increase other deductions.

Lieberman said the Republican proposal would primarily benefit the very rich: "Their plan gives most to people who need it least and least to people who need it most."

Gore, who had just sworn off a campaign of "sound bites and P.R. and images," chuckled. "That was a sound bite with substance," he told his running mate.

In Texas, Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett said Gore was misleading people about Bush's proposal. The Bush plan is "much more fair" because everyone would have lower taxes, Bartlett said. "With the Gore plan, you've got to jump through hoops to get targeted tax relief."

Gore and Lieberman were wrapping up the fourth and final day of their 400-mile tour of Mississippi River communities in a page of Americana -- Mark Twain's boyhood home of Hannibal, Mo.

Gore and his wife, Tipper, have been so pleased with the image and feel of this trip that they were considering more politicking by boat. Aides said husband and wife were also more likely now to campaign together, instead of covering more ground separately as they did in the primaries, because they saw these past days the benefit of having Mrs. Gore around to keep her husband loose.

Talking with reporters over a yogurt breakfast, Gore credited his bump in polls to the policy detail he has added to his stump speech.

"The risk I took to talk specifics has paid off," he said.

And Gore, an accomplished debater, said he was eager to go one-on-one with Bush.

Gore suggested the Republican was trying to duck prime-time exposure by proposing that their opposing camps negotiate debates outside the three nationally televised forums already scheduled by the Commission on Presidential Debates.

Bush "wants to see if he can get away with some Sunday morning talk show when nobody's watching much," Gore said.

"The American people have a right in this day and time to be respected with an adult, intelligent discussion of what the major issues are."

Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes shot back that Gore might be feeling "a little out-negotiated" because he had accepted more than 40 debate invitations among which Bush could now choose.

Gore and Lieberman, scheduled for some time off at the end of this week, were showing the strain of virtually nonstop campaigning and late-night rallies where no outstretched hand went unshaken.

As Lieberman joked Monday, "I realized I was coming to the edge the other night when I started shaking hands with the Secret Service agents."