The 51 men pretended -- yuck, did they pretend -- in order to win the support of the female audience, in whose hands the election rested. Hence, they pandered. They liked moonlit walks, they said, they liked fidelity and cuddling. One said his biggest fault was that he was always planning for the future and not enough of a party guy. Another swore his favorite part of a woman's body was her eyes, since they reflect the soul.

The challenge was similar for Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore one day later -- they had to feign, for the benefit of a few small clumps of undecided voters in a few key states, a substantial majority of whom are women.

Bush had to feign substance, Gore style; Bush gravitas, Gore veritas; Bush familiarity with the English language, Gore a personal approach reasonably close to that of earthlings. Bush had to seem remotely up to the most important job in the universe when he can't make it past graph three on a briefing paper; Gore had to act as if there were things important to him other than his own personal ends, damn the means.

There were other, more cosmetic, attempts to hide the blemishes, ones discussed in Smoke-Filled Backroom Negotiations between campaigns. The hyper-sweaty Gore, who perspires more than Dick Nixon on a luau spit, won a concession to have the theater at the University of Massachusetts at Boston's Clark Athletic Center chilled to 65 degrees. Bush's representatives lost out on their request, however, to have their candidate's lectern a little lower than Gore's, apparently so that Bush, at about 5-foot-10, would appear to be as tall as Gore, who is 6-foot-1.

It is the job of reporters, of course, to pierce their feints. That said, there's not much work for us to do on this, as both men failed at their pundit-prescribed tasks.

Gore, with several layers of clown makeup caked on his puffy face, seemed double-digits smarter, but his rhetorical assaults -- which, unlike Bush's, focused on his opponent's proposals and not his character -- somehow seemed harsher. His style and cadence wore thin pretty quick; surely swing voters are contemplating whether they want to listen to his hectoring condescension for four years.

Bush, meanwhile, painted himself early on as the man from Outside Washington. "Our nation needs somebody that can come to Washington, let's forget all the finger-pointing and get positive things done," Bush said. "It's time to get somebody in Washington who is going to work with both Republicans and Democrats to get some positive things done."

"They've had a chance, they've had a chance to form consensus."

But in general, beyond this message, Bush whiffed. He seemed like a loads nicer guy, but at times laughably unprepared. Sure, his arguments about their differences in principle -- Bush trusts the American people, Gore trusts big government -- resonated, but it was lost amid the din of Gore's incessant mantra about how much the wealthy would benefit from Bush's tax-cut proposal.

When the debate wandered into foreign policy terrain, Bush seemed frighteningly ill-informed and eager to change the subject. Solid arguments and rebuttals he had on education and Social Security were buried deep in the last third of the 90-minute debate.

Gore's still unlikable; Bush still seems dumb. Feels like a tie.

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