f there was any doubt remaining that George W. Bush had himself a pretty good night Monday debating the Republicans chasing him, it evaporated in the postdebate humbug that MSNBC served up to those for whom 90 minutes was not enough.
Tom Brokaw, the strolling anchorman who was one of the co-hosts for the nicely formatted event, was schmoozing Bush afterward during what the pols call ''the spin cycle.'' This now-customary dessert follows the actual debate itself, the meat-and-potatoes segment of your TV dinner.
Brokaw was letting Bush talk himself out, in the manner of postgame interviewers bracing a sweating football player en route to the dressing room. Bush, whose first two outings against live ammunition left even some of his partisans gagging, was elated with his performance. ''You did a good job tonight,'' the Texas governor complimented Brokaw.
This was the equivalent of the pupil giving the professor a chuck on the old shoulder and telling him confidently the lecture was dandy. For a month we've been hearing whispers about Bush's brain power and cranial capacity. Even some of Bush's handlers had to be wondering if their guy was ever going to show he had the right stuff. Monday night reassured them.
As the least experienced of all six candidates in terms of televised debates, Bush surpassed expectations for the first time. He's not yet in Clinton's league - it's doubtful he ever will be - but he was good enough to protect his big lead in Iowa and probably good enough to stall the John McCain surge.
McCain, the feisty Arizonan who has run the best campaign of any of the eight major party candidates, has nosed ahead of Bush in New Hampshire, the only place in the land where Bush trails anyone in the polls.
The Iowa Republicans who'll come out in the cold and dark on caucus night Jan. 24 are a very conservative bunch. Bush took some light jabs from some of the right-wingers back in the pack - Gary Bauer, Alan Keyes, and Senator Orrin Hatch, none of whom has a ghost of a chance of being nominated. There were some more ineffectual pawings from Steve Forbes, the hapless billionaire-turned-millionaire, whose magazine fortune is being spent down as he pursues his pricey trip to nowhere.
Like a rich man sitting down to a banquet, Bush kept turning up his nose at invitations proffered by the less fortunate: No, he told Bauer, he won't take a pledge to appoint only antiabortion running mates or federal judges. And, no, he scoffed to McCain, he won't sign on to any campaign finance reform scheme that doesn't curb union contributions.
As ever, the gutsy McCain was the one who carried the fight. The crowd in the hall began booing when they realized he was attacking federal subsidies for ethanol, the corn-based gasoline additive that soaks up some excess Iowa grain.
''I'm here to tell you things you don't want to hear,'' said the old fighter pilot and POW. ''Everybody here on this stage, if it wasn't for the fact that Iowa has the first caucuses, would share my view that we don't need ethanol subsidies.''
Bush happily appropriated the ground McCain conceded. ''I'd have supported ethanol whether I was here in Iowa or not,'' he claimed with a straight face. ''It's good for our air. It's good for the air, it's good for the quality of the air.''
When that particular smog bank cleared, others rushed in to defend the Iowa farmers' right to pocket the ethanol subsidy. There was so much stroking of the downtrodden farmer, and promises to do better by what H. L. Mencken used to call ''the horny-handed husbandman,'' that the bilious Sage of Baltimore might be rolling over six feet under the buncombe layer of permafrost in which the old newspaperman is buried.
McCain, whose modus operandi is never to return to base without having expended all ammo, challenged Bush to agree to ban soft money, the six-figure donations by which the major parties fund their lavish operations and TV buys.
''Here's my worry with your plan. It's going to hurt the Republican Party, John,'' said the Texas governor, calling it ''unilateral disarmament'' for Republicans. McCain tried to regain the offensive by asking, ''How did Ronald Reagan get elected?'' Soft money was not a factor in the Reagan election of 1980, but Bush evaded the trap by seguing into an attack on labor unions as tools of the Democratic Party. Brokaw employed a clever device by grilling each man on specific aspects of the Iowa Republican Party state platform, a document so tilted to the right that Bush and McCain had to tap dance away from some of its sterner provisions on abortion and other matters.
But the Born Again crowd had to love Bush's response when asked which ''political philosopher'' he most admires. Given all the speculation about the vacant space between the Bush earlobes, I half-expected some goofy rejoinder like ''Bart Simpson'' or ''Waylon Jennings.'' But Bush said: ''Christ ... When you turn your heart and life over to Christ, when you accept Christ as your savior it changes your heart.''
McCain's political philosopher was Teddy Roosevelt, the hard charger who took San Juan Hill and ramrodded the Panama Canal. But not even the Old Rough Rider could trump the Lord. So Bush has it all going for him now, even the Deity. McCain's last, best hope is those New Hampshire independents. If they don't stick with him, against ethanol subsidies and big money and business as usual, the old Navy flyboy is going down.
David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.
