As they look for cues to decide their vote, millions of Americans will tune in Tuesday to watch Al Gore and George Bush square off for a final time.
But why?
Debates can be riveting political theater, certainly, and entertaining fodder for water-cooler conversation the next day. Yet exactly what essential quality, or ability, is it that such a prime-time encounter reveals?
''It's an excellent question,'' says Alan Schroeder, author of ''Presidential Debates: 40 Years of High Risk TV,'' ''There is much about debating that isn't analogous to governing.''
''Debates are very good and important campaign tools, but in truth they have virtually nothing to do with governance,'' says Stephen Hess, a senior fellow in governmental studies at the Brookings Institute. ''I have been on the staff of two presidents and I can't remember a single instance in which I would have said, that is a debating skill.''
Certainly once the debates are over, it's doubtful we'll ever again see the successful candidate stand alone, off-guard, uncertain, facing unknown demands. Unlike a British prime minister, who must face an often unruly and derisive opposition in a weekly parliamentary question time, a chief executive's presentations to Congress will be formal affairs guided and girded by ritual and courtesy.
As president, each national address will be a carefully choreographed affair, the words unspooling in measured cadence on a teleprompter, the rhetoric honed to a precise degree of exhortation, inspiration, or admonition by his speechwriting team. In no governmental endeavor will such a putative premium be put on attack or rebuttal, one-upmanship or put-down-manship.
Even a presidential press conference, probably as close as he will, in office, ever come to a sharp, pointed inquisition - provided he steers clear of a grand jury, that is - is bound by rules of decorum that emphasize respect for the office and offer protection from vigorous cross-examination.
Nor will an exhaustive knowledge of policy particulars be necessary for the next chief executive. Indeed, two of the least policy-versed presidents of the postwar era - Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan - are now seen by historians as numbering among the era's most successful chief executives.
Some argue that the truth of one's intent is laid bare in the rigor of prime time crossfire - but surely undecided voters can find a more accurate critique of a candidate's plans in media reports than in an opponent's determined effort to portray those plans in the worst possible light. There, at least, voters do not need truth-squadding to glean the reality behind charge and countercharge - though each election produces fewer and fewer citizens making the effort either to inform themselves or to vote.
One TV moment just before the start of Wednesday's debate offered a revealing look at the general level of campaign knowledge. On ABC, millionaire-maker Regis Philbin asked a guest to identify the home state of Joseph Lieberman, Gore's running mate. Baffled, the contestant opted to use a lifeline and consult the audience. Even with Connecticut among the four choices, 28 percent of the audience got the answer wrong.
That, like the dismaying lack of awareness revealed in post-debate interviews with panels of undecided voters, makes one question how many viewers are treating the debates as a seminar in policy differences.
But does that mean the debates have no value? It may be tempting to think so, but it would ignore a second, equally important reality: the verdicts viewers reach after candidate debates are rooted less in substance than style, more in personality than policy proposals.
That explains, in part, why Bush's performance last week was considered a victory, while Gore's behavior the previous week at the University of Massachusetts backfired on him.
Bush has managed to do a bit of what John Kennedy did in 1960 and Reagan in 1980. Forty years ago, in their seminal first debate, a tanned, handsome, confident Kennedy won the TV contest, while the five-o'clock-shadowed Nixon prevailed with radio listeners.
It's why the debate moments we think of when we think of Reagan's first campaign are two: His take-charge, ''I paid for this microphone, Mr. Green,'' in the New Hampshire primary, and his ''There you go again'' to President Carter that fall. The latter line has been shown and repeated so often it's become legend that Reagan beat Carter in the debate.
However, in the hall and in the press, some judged Carter - who had kept Reagan on the defensive, forcing him to defend his views on questions ranging from minorities, energy, Social Security, to war and peace - the clear winner on substance.
''On content and meaning, Mr. Carter won,'' declared the New York Times editorial page. In retrospect, however, that debate, like the two this fall, was not about winning and losing on issues. Rather, it was about Reagan establishing himself as a reasonable alternative to Carter.
''What people wanted was to be reassured that Reagan wasn't a total nincompoop, and he came close to giving them that assurance,'' says Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. That threshold met, Reagan's famously avuncular personality came into play.
As political writers Jack Germond and Jules Witcover wrote in ''Blue Smoke and Mirrors,'' their chronicle of the 1980 election, Nevada Senator Paul Laxalt was one of the strongest proponents of debating in Reagan's camp, for this reason: ''I felt the governor could handle himself on matters of substance, and would clearly defeat Carter in style. ... It was a rerun of 1960 - the cold professional as opposed to the warm Irishman.''
Take away the Emerald Isle ethnicity and that begins to sound like a description of the first two Bush-Gore encounters.
Although post-debate polls and punditry pointed to a Bush win in last week's debate, the Texas governor, though plausibly knowledgeable on foreign affairs, hardly beat Gore on substance. His leadoff answer was thin and repetitious and he frequently returned to well-worn generalities.
Yet he just as clearly met the basic competence threshold - and he also projected a sense of genuineness, a warmth, and an occasional flash of wit, qualities whose absence in Gore make him seem such an inauthentic and uncentered presence.
By the Reagan standard, Bush's was a considerable achievement, for often the important thing undecided voters take from a debate is a personal feel for a candidate.
''It gives people a chance to achieve a level of comfort with a candidate,'' said Schroder. ''Using the job interview analogy Al Gore has kind of co-opted, it gives you a chance, as someone who is hiring a person, to figure out whether you are comfortable in a visceral way with that person. I think that intangible feel is as important as the issues and the substantive discussion.''
''The debates are really about connecting with people,'' says Ron Kaufman, White House political director under President Bush, and an informal adviser to the son's campaign. ''People voted for Ronald Reagan because he connected with voters. People voted for Bill Clinton because he connected with voters. In the end, that's what people are asking: Which of these two people connects with me?''
That's where Bush has made steady progress. His answers may not be as detailed or knowledgeable as Gore's, but through both encounters, he has seemed more sincere and likable, while the vice president, who has yawed between exasperatingly overbearing and unconvincing obsequious, in neither case has projected a persona that connects comfortably. That's one reason Gore lost for winning in Round 1.
Bush's big success, meanwhile, has been in making that personal connection, says Kaufman. And he's not alone. One despairing veteran of a number of Democratic national campaigns, while insisting Gore has done better on substance, makes the same point about Bush.
''A debate is an opportunity to answer questions about whether you have the capacity and whether there is a comfort level with your personality and Bush is answering at least one of those questions,'' laments this strategist.
Two debates do not a campaign make, of course. The race remains very close, and Gore, a tough and experienced campaigner, will try to rip apart Bush's Texas record much the way George Bush the elder went after Michael Dukakis's record as governor in 1988. On Wednesay, Gore's assault on Texas tended to be more powerful than Bush's rebuttals.
Further, the terrorist attack Thursday on the US warship in Yemen might trigger military action and, possibly, a rally-round-the-flag effect that could help Gore.
And yet so far, in a hard-fought, razor-close contest, the fact remains that the first two of the public clashes Gore sought and Bush tried to evade have played less to Gore's acknowledged expertise than to Bush's personal appeal.
