ANOVER, N.H. - The town hall meeting had ended last night and the spinners and surrogates clogged the press room arguing for and against the two Democratic candidates for president.
But in the auditorium at Dartmouth College, Vice President Al Gore stayed on. For an extraordinary 95 minutes, he continued to answer the questions of the students and citizens who lingered, wanting to know more than could ever fit into the prescribed 90-second televised responses.
There were no microphones, no television anchors, and no pre-screened queries.
First, the vice president stood as a crowd formed around him. Then, he perched on the edge of the stage, with about 100 people sitting on the floor, in the aisle, and on chairs.
One young woman asked him what he would do if he didn't get the Democratic nomination. Then she apologized for being ''mean.''
But Gore and his wife, Tipper, who had come to join him, shook their heads no. It was a legitimate question, they told her.
''We're not afraid to lose,'' Gore said. ''I don't have to win to be complete as a human being.''
He said he was running for president because he wants to serve the public, to make the country a better place. But, he said, ''In order to run, you have to be willing to take risks.''
In recent weeks, as his numbers in the polls have slipped, Gore has said he is happy for Bill Bradley's challenge. Last night, he sounded like he might just mean it.
Gore acknowledged that if he had the choice, he would rather be unopposed. But he called the race against Bradley, the former New Jersey senator, ''a great experience for me.''
It forced him to reevaluate himself and his campaign, he said. And it required him to shed some of the habits he had adopted as vice president.
Another student asked him to elaborate on what those traits were. So Gore tried to explain what it's like to be vice president.
''When you take an oath as vice president, you make a promise to be part of a team,'' he said. ''You're helping the president to be the best he can be.''
That means, he said, that when a vice president is asked a question ''you are going to take a split second to think if you're being true to that oath,'' and advancing the team.
He said that moment is a pause for ''internal vetting'' that goes with the job.
''I'm through with that,'' he said, emphatically, smiling and shaking his head as if shrugging off a weight. ''I'm through with that and it feels good.''
Dean Spiliotes, a Dartmouth professor of government, said it was a good night for both Bradley and Gore.
''Bradley looked very comfortable alone on stage,'' Spiliotes said. ''He clearly is a viable challenger. This will be a competitive two-person race.''
Bradley, meanwhile, did not stick around after the forum, leaving aides to provide ''spin'' about his performance.
''He's being driven to Nashua so he can have a nice quiet night of sleep,'' Bradley spokesman Eric Hauser said, when asked for the whereabouts of the candidate.
Hauser was quick to respond to Gore's charges from the formal televised forum that Bradley's health care plan would cost $1.4 trillion over 10 years, not $650 billion as Bradley has said.
''The vice president has no credibility on budget issues,'' Hauser said. ''He has put forward no cost estimates on his own program, so he has no credibility to analyze anybody else's.''
