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In the press room for post-debate spin, however, the candidates freely laid into one another. And since that time, as the D-Days of the Iowa caucus (Jan. 24) and New Hampshire primary (Feb. 1) have approached, the bombs have started to fly.

Thus, at Thursday night's free-wheelin' GOP debate -- held on the campus of the University of New Hampshire -- the candidates frequently found it difficult to contain the seething vitriol building up behind their generally pleasant salesman-like exteriors. It was clearer than ever before that they feel genuine animosity toward each other and, yes, even toward the media -- as personified by the debate's three questioners and moderator Tim Russert of NBC.

Generally, however, the snipes were targeted at the front-runner, Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

The best line of the night came after Russert pressed Bush on his response in the Iowa debate that Jesus was his favorite philosopher. He asked the governor if he'd take the religio-pop expression "What would Jesus do?" with him into the Oval Office.

Bush walked right into a slam by kiddingly rejoining that he would "take the expression, 'Dear God -- help me,'" instead.

"So would we, Governor," said Christian activist Gary Bauer, who has throughout these debates revealed himself to be the pack's foremost debater, as well as one vicious little s.o.b.

"That's a little low blow," Bush said. "That wasn't very Christian of you."

"Touché, touché," said Bauer.

Nationally, the glib and goofy Bush has an overwhelming lead in polls. Here in New Hampshire, however, the race is much more competitive. According to the most recent temperature-taking -- conducted by the American Research Group from Dec. 29 to Dec. 31 -- Bush and Arizona Sen. John McCain are getting stains from one another's sweat, with McCain barely ahead 36 percent to 33 percent, within the poll's 4-point margin of error.

In the Granite State, the other four candidates have been treading the water of their own irrelevance. Publisher Steve Forbes has 11 percent and commentator Alan Keyes has 3 percent, while Bauer and Senate Judiciary Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah are duking it out for Aunt Mabel's Nashua, N.H., supper club, holding steady with 1 percent apiece.

Thus, the candidates were cutting each other off, sniping, snarking, interrupting, feigning offense, and once -- need I even tell you that Keyes was involved? -- going after Russert. They frequently bickered like children.

McCain and Bush had already spent days sniping at one another for their respective tax-cut plans -- with McCain saying that Bush squanders the surplus on a budget cut targeted at the rich, and Bush saying that McCain sounds like Al Gore. Bush is so eager to make tax cuts his raison d'être -- though I could swear just a few weeks ago education was his cause -- he even one-upped his old man's most infamous quote, "Read my lips, no new taxes," a 1988 campaign promise that Bush the elder of course broke. "This is not only 'No new taxes,'" Bush said when pressed for a pledge, "this is 'Tax cuts, so help me God.'" But McCain has been trying to hang this pledge around Bush's neck as irresponsible and immature. At the debate, he pressed Bush to affirm that his plan wouldn't spent the entire budget surplus on a tax cut.

"Your plan does," McCain said.

"No, it doesn't," Bush countered.

"Yes, it does," McCain returned.

"'No, it doesn't,' 'Yes, it does,' 'No, it doesn't,'" Bush mimicked, thus ending the debate.

At another, somewhat more disconcerting moment, the pompous, proselytizing Keyes wouldn't cede the floor to moderator Russert, asserting after one of the more chaotic portions that "the format of the debate has gotten a little strange. And I begin to wonder when Mr. Russert will declare his candidacy."

Some candidates begged. Or Hatch did, at any rate, pleading with voters to "give me a chance ... I have experience ... I think it's time to give me a chance." Hatch stopped short of dropping to his knees.

Slap-fights came when the candidates dived into what the debate organizers referred to as a "modified" version of the format of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. It was then, for instance, that Keyes took umbrage at jokemaster McCain's aside that he enjoyed the f-word-happy band Nine Inch Nails -- a flippant remark he made after visiting the MTV music video awards with his then-14-year-old daughter.

"You ought to be a little more serious," Keyes charged, "instead of aiding and abetting cultural murder."

"Can I get a lifeline?" McCain asked.

Next page | Is Bush behind the latest stories about McCain?