hen Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens faced off last year at Fenway Park, there were 33,871 seats and every one was passionately coveted. Tonight's presidential debate will make those tickets seem as common as bus transfers.
Officials at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, site of the debate, said there will be only about 900 seats for the first face-to-face meeting between Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush of Texas. One-third of the tickets will go to each campaign, with the remaining third to the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which organized the event.
Spokesmen for both candidates said they were still finalizing their lists of attendees, and no tickets had been distributed as of last night. Still, names of some of the likely, and lucky, ticket-holders seeped out throughout the day.
Among the family members expected to attend on Bush's behalf are his brother Jeb, the governor of Florida; his sister, Doro Bush Koch; and his cousin Craig Stapleton and Stapleton's son, Walker.
Top Republican political and policy figures expected to attend, according to the campaign, include Jim Nicholson, chairman of the Republican National Committee; top Bush political strategist Karl Rove; foreign policy adviser Condeleezza Rice; former Federal Reserve governor Larry Lindsay; and Alfonso Jackson, head of the Dallas Housing Authority.
On the Gore side of the aisle, along with family and friends, expected attendees include Joe Andrew, national chairman of the Democratic National Committee; Ed Rendell, Philadelphia mayor and general chairman of the DNC; Peter Knight, a top Gore aide from Massachusetts; Michael Perik, a Gore supporter and founder of SoftKey; and Ann and Marty Peretz, owners of The New Republic magazine.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steve Grossman is among the few who can say he was offered a ticket but declined. Grossman said yesterday that he will be home, watching the debate and preparing to debate Cellucci tomorrow night.
Of the remaining seats, a portion will go to UMass as host of the event. The bulk of the university's seats will be distributed to students, said spokesman Bob Connolly.
Anne E. Kornblut of the Globe Staff, traveling with the Bush campaign, contributed to this report.
