The reality is not that simple. Sunday's debate on NBC's "Meet the Press" featured misspoken history as well as campaign-inspired research dressed up in the day's rhetoric to look objective.

Bradley, attacked on health care by the vice president, said his proposal covers far more people than Gore's does. He cited as evidence a "study last week by Harvard and Stanford."

A joint study by those two top universities? Hardly. It was done by three economic advisers to the Bradley campaign, two of whom work at Harvard and Stanford.

For his part, Gore blamed a Republican Senate majority for standing in the way of efforts to clean up the system of campaign financing in 1993. But Democrats were in control then -- of the Senate, the House and the administration in which he has been vice president since January of that year.

Thanks to a format that permitted tough follow-up questions by moderator Tim Russert as well as back-and-forth between the rivals, the candidates were called to account for some statements that would have gone unchallenged in more formal debates.

For example, Gore declared flatly that budget surpluses would be certain if he became president. "I'm committing to surpluses," he said. "I'm committing that in every budget that I propose in a Gore presidency, we will pay down the national debt."

Gore backed down in a blink when asked about the prospect of an unforeseen crisis, such as war. "No, of course," he said. "If there's a national crisis, then all bets are off."

Bradley was more open than Gore to the possibility that the economy could tank in the future and throw off assumptions underlying his spending plans.

Even so, Bradley retreated into that handy cover used by leaders who don't want to speculate about painful choices, such as raising the Social Security retirement age or cutting benefits: He would seek a "bipartisan approach to the problem."

The candidates were not brought back to earth on all occasions, however.

Bradley said that as a senator from New Jersey, he urged the administration to push campaign finance reform in 1993, when Democrats were in control of both houses of Congress.

"Now I don't know if you were in the loop or not," Bradley told Gore. "But the fact of the matter is that no action took place."

"Because all of the Republicans voted against it," Gore replied. "And they controlled the Senate."

"Where was the effort made, Al, in 1993?" Bradley asked, repeating the year.

"We got every single Democratic senator to vote for it," Gore went on.

Republicans won control of the Senate and House in the November 1994 elections.

Several campaign finance proposals were passed in 1993 with at least some Republicans in support and some Democrats dissenting.

In a battle of dueling studies, Gore went after Bradley on the costs and scope of his plan to expand health coverage. Gore cited "independent analyses" to back him up, including a study by an Emory University professor who is a former Clinton-Gore administration official.

Gore has used that study in the past, but this time he dropped a new name as an "independent" analyst -- Martin Feldstein.

Feldstein, a Harvard professor who has criticized Bradley's plan in The Wall Street Journal, is a former Reagan administration official and has been advising Texas Gov. George W. Bush's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

But Gore's favorite studies, at least, were not written by people helping him directly.

Bradley's "Harvard and Stanford" study was released last week by his campaign. Authors include David Cutler of Harvard and Alan Gerber of Stanford. Both helped Bradley put together the health plan in the first place.