ust when he seemed to be out of the shadow of Bill Clinton's weaknesses, Al Gore made his the issue. That gives George W. Bush a chance to wriggle away from his own weaknesses at a critical time in this year's presidential race.
As demonstrated by the exchange at the end of Wednesday night's debate, the campaign is taking a troubling turn for Gore. Instead of measuring Bush's intelligence quotient, voters are measuring Gore's integrity quotient. Instead of questioning Bush's policies, they are questioning Gore's principles.
The vice president has no one to blame but himself for this turn of events. With his exaggerations and misstatements of fact, Gore handed his opponent a weapon for the final weeks of campaign 2000: a credibility gap as a candidate that could remind voters of Bill Clinton's credibility gap as president.
Americans may be pleased with the general direction of the country under Clinton, particularly when it comes to the economy. But the president's moral laxness and propensity for trimming the truth continue to hurt his personal standing with the public. Anything linking Gore to those characteristics of the Clinton White House is not good for his presidential aspirations.
In a front-page story this week, The Wall Street Journal assured readers that ''for years, presidents and presidential candidates have been telling big and little lies, misrepresenting their positions and putting together images of themselves bearing little relationship to reality.''
That may be so, but it is a pattern Gore cannot afford to repeat.
When Gore declared at the Democratic National Convention, ''I stand before you as my own man,'' he was quite lucky. Voters took the vice president at his word and stood willing to judge him on his own merits.
As the campaign progresses, voters are not holding Gore responsible for Clinton's weakness for women to whom he is not married. Their generosity on that score makes sense; Gore gives every indication of having a loving and respectful relationship with his own wife. Why should he be held accountable for anything less between Bill and Hillary Clinton?
Gore's choice of US Senator Joseph Lieberman as his running mate also worked well to inoculate him from any residual Clinton taint.
But now the Lieberman shot could be losing some of its strength. Gore's pattern of exaggeration reminds voters of Clinton's problems with truthfulness. And Clinton may actually induce more sympathy. Imagine a nationally televised grilling about alleged infidelity. A dishonest answer, such as ''I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,'' could tempt anyone.
Gore's exaggerations are about silly things that make him more important, such as stating that he accompanied James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to inspect fire and flood damage in Texas. Gore went to Texas with Witt's deputies.
The exaggerations undercut the vice president's ability to capitalize on Bush's true weaknesses: his lack of experience and his record as governor. For example, Texas does have an abysmal record when it comes to the environment and health care standards for women and children. Gore is right to point it out, and he did so effectively during the Winston-Salem debate. But if Gore's credibility remains an issue, voters may not believe what he has to say about Bush's record.
During the Wednesday night debate, Gore apologized, saying: ''I got some of the details wrong in some of the examples I used last week. I'm sorry about that. I'm going to try to do better.''
But the weapon remains in Bush's hand, and it's clear he intends to use it. During the last exchange of the night, the Republican governor said he would leave it up to voters to judge Gore. Then, when Gore criticized his opponent's tax plan, saying it ''gives almost half the benefits to the wealthiest of the wealthy,'' Bush replied: ''That's the kind of exaggeration I was just talking about.''
Character is the fault line for the Clinton administration, and it will be for the Gore campaign, too. If Gore's credibility is the overriding issue on election day, he cannot win.
After all, would you rather have a president who is not so smart or one who is not so honest?
Joan Vennochi's e-mail address is vennochi@globe.com.
