Bush outshines Gore in second encounter

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, OCT. 14. If polls taken immediately after the first debate in Boston showed the Vice-President, Mr. Albert Gore Jr., coming away with a clear ``win'', it is a different story at the end of the second encounter in North Carolina. Three snap polls taken by television networks have all shown the Texas Governor, Mr. George W. Bush, coming out on top, with one putting him ahead by at least 16 percentage points.

Snap polls are dicey business but nevertheless, a part of the political game. The biggest advantage for Mr. Bush was that he stood his ground on foreign affairs, an area in which he was seen as extremely uncomfortable and vulnerable. Mr. Bush packaged his remarks around philosophical differences with his opponent while being careful not to get dragged into details.

The post-debate polls are important in the sense that it sets the stage for the final debate in St. Louis, Missouri, where the candidates will be questioned by common citizens. At the Wake Forest University in North Carolina, it was a format that the Bush camp strived for and had its way.

If there were more areas of agreement between the candidates - especially on matters of foreign policy - much of it had to do with a calculated strategy. To Mr. Gore, it had to do with not sounding too pompous and condescending; and for Mr. Bush, the impression of closing ranks with the Commander-in-Chief at a time of an international crisis and at the same time getting out the philosophical differences, as for instance, in the use of American troops overseas.

The candidates stayed with the broader themes, domestic and foreign, and for a good reason. Both of them, especially Mr. Gore, were criticised sharply for their ``math debate'' in Boston last week; and the minute emphasis on details led to some fumbling which was then passed off as examples of consistent exaggerations.

Mr. Gore conceded, ``I got some of the details wrong last week in some of the examples I used...One of the reasons I regret it is that getting a detail wrong interfered several times with the point I was trying to make.'' But the North Carolina debate showed that Mr. Bush too could meet the same fate.

In trying to defend his State for punishing people charged with hate crimes, Mr. Bush said the three men convicted in the 1998 killing of James Byrd, an African American, had been sentenced to death. ``We can't enhance the penalty any more than putting those three thugs to death. That is what is going to happen in the State of Texas'', Mr. Bush responded. However, the fact is that only two of the men got the death penalty and the third received a life sentence for the murder of Byrd who was tied to the bumper of a pick-up truck and dragged for about 5 km. The Bush campaign immediately issued a correction.

Soon after the second debate was over, it was back to political business with Mr. Gore campaigning in North Carolina before heading for Wisconsin. Mr. Bush hit the campaign trail in the crucial States of Pennsylvania and Michigan.

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