But the Democratic presidential candidates went a little adrift when joining forces to take on the religious right.

Invited to comment on Republican John McCain's attacks on some Christian conservative leaders, Bradley criticized the religious right with relish and asserted: "I've never voted in ways that they've wanted."

Not quite. Christian Voice, a conservative evangelical lobbying group, credited Bradley with voting for its preferred positions 14 percent of the time in the 1991-92 session, when he represented New Jersey in the Senate.

Vice President Gore, then a Tennessee senator, voted the group's way 9 percent of the time in that period.

Gore omitted some facts from his past in the Wednesday night debate when he attacked the Republican presidential candidates for being "in the hip pocket of the NRA" and when he praised McCain for standing up against Big Tobacco.

Gore's old voting record in Congress against gun controls once made him a favorite of the National Rifle Association, too, and he voted in support of tobacco interests as well.

Bradley, previously fierce in making those points, let them pass.

Moreover, Gore said neither McCain nor GOP rival George W. Bush had the courage to speak out against the flying of the Confederate flag over the South Carolina Statehouse.

Gore did not exactly jump on the issue himself.

Until almost the middle of January, he had said through a spokeswoman that he "supports the right of the people of South Carolina to remove the Confederate flag," a position that would also presumably support their right to keep it up if they chose.

After that, and with Bradley saying flatly that the flag should come down, Gore made an unequivocal statement that "the flag should be removed from the state capitol."

Even if inclined, Bradley did not have much chance to counter Gore's invitation to voters, in his closing statement, to join him in moving "step by step to universal health care."

Gore's platform has steps to expand access to affordable health insurance, but it does not provide for universal health care.

On the other hand, some past misfires were avoided.

Gore and Bradley both approached the issue of racial profiling with much more nuance than in their previous encounter, when they portrayed the problem of racial discrimination by local police departments as something they'd single-handedly solve as president.

They didn't renew that sweeping and overreaching offer in the Los Angeles debate but sketched how they would take that problem seriously. For example, Gore noted the federal government is collecting statistics to find out just how widespread racial profiling is.