First Debate

WASHINGTON -- Hypothetical questions can be danger zones in presidential debates. Michael Dukakis learned that, almost two decades ago, when he answered a question about what he would do if his wife were raped and murdered. In last night's opening debate of the 2008 campaign, it was Barack Obama's bad luck to be the first candidate asked how he would respond militarily overseas, as president, to a hypothetical al-Qaida terrorist strike on two U.S. cities. The freshman senator said he'd make sure there was an effective emergency response to the cities that got hit. Then he would find out if there was any intelligence about who might have carried out the attack, "so that we can take potentially some action to dismantle that network."

WASHINGTON -- For Bob Dole, it may be now or never.The presidential debates, starting tonight at 9 p.m., offer the Republican his best opportunity to seize the initiative in his challenge against President Clinton."

Freeport, Ill. -- A rental car pulls up to the large boulder sitting in a park off Douglas Street. A young, blond girl bounds out and does to the boulder what, undoubtedly, most of her peers would do.She climbs on it, little caring that it marks the site of one of the most talked-about debates in American history.In 1858, Freeport and six other Illinois cities were visited by Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, two men locked in a senatorial contest that, for much of the nation, was crystallizing the two issues then dominating the American consciousness: slavery and states' rights.

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- The gloves came off in the final presidential debate last night, with Bill Clinton getting "front-runner treatment" from rivals George Bush and Ross Perot.Forsaking the issue-oriented restraint of the second debate, which featured questions from voters, the candidates bashed one another with abandon for 90 minutes on national television with Mr. Clinton feeling much of the heat.Each man had his moments, but the realities of an increasingly one-sided contest could be seen in the strategies of Mr. Bush and Mr. Perot, both far back in the polls.

WASHINGTON -- In this presidential election season, as in every one since 1976, a sort of tribal dance is being performed by the two major-party candidates over the question of debates.How many should there be, when and under what format? And as in previous election years, threats of having none are tossed back and forth. But in the end differences have been worked out, and this year is expected to be no exception.The rejection by the Bush-Quayle campaign of dates and a format proposed by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, and the Clinton-Gore team's subsequent re-jection of a Bush-Quayle deadline tonegotiate changes, are part of strategic jockeying on both sides.

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- With the completion of the debate phase of the presidential campaign here on the Michigan State campus, one political chessboard can be put away for another four years. Once again, the candidates and not any third party such as the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates made the critical moves that determined when and how the debates would be conducted, and how many.Unless legislation is passed by 1996 requiring presidential debates, and that's not likely, the same maneuvering will take place again in four years, assuming that each of the major-party nominees chooses to debate at all. But with the precedent of debates in the last five presidential elections, it will be hard for either candidate to say no without risking the wrath, or at least the ridicule, of the electorate.

RICHMOND, Va. -- The voters took over last night in the second presidential debate, and they didn't just ask the questions. They told President Bush, Gov. Bill Clinton and independent candidate Ross Perot that they wanted them to quit slinging mud at each other and get down to discussing the issues that affect their lives.Without entirely abandoning personal comments, the candidates obediently knuckled down to talking about a range of subjects in greater depth than in the first presidential debate in St. Louis or in the vice presidential debate in Atlanta.

WASHINGTON -- Creating what many analysts believe might be a last-gasp opportunity for President Bush, the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates have agreed to cram in three debates in nine days and to include independent Ross Perot.The candidates will debate Sunday, Oct. 11, again on Oct. 13 or Oct. 15, and for the last time on Monday, Oct. 19, their aides said yesterday. The three vice presidential candidates will debate once, either Oct. 13 or Oct. 15.Though Mr. Bush and Mr. Perot have more to gain than the front-running Mr. Clinton, political analysts generally agree it will be very difficult for the president to use the debates to overtake Mr. Clinton -- and virtually impossible for Mr. Perot to do so.Debates historically have tended to reinforce existing voter impressions, which would benefit Mr. Clinton, who is leading Mr. Bush by at least 9 percentage points in most polls.

Their assessment was sweeping and sure: Bill Clinton won it. President Bush was a disappointment. Ross Perot was nothing but lightweight comic relief. And, wonder of wonders in this overheated season of charge and countercharge, the candidates actually talked about the issues, occasionally even in some detail.That was the assessment last night from a panel of eight #F Baltimore-area voters who watched the first of three presidential debates together at the invitation of the Baltimore Sun, after being selected from random telephone calls by House Market Research Inc. of Potomac.

"If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered. . . ." That was the strange beginning of the most famous exchange of the 1988 presidential debates, an exchange between CNN's Bernard Shaw and Michael Dukakis in which Mr. Dukakis' impassive and clinical response defending his opposition to the death penalty sealed his fate in the election itself.That is the conventional wisdom -- but it is wrong.In fact, hours before that final presidential debate, ABC's Peter Jennings had reported that Mr. Bush's lead appeared to be insurmountable, in all likelihood regardless of what happened in the debate.

Bishop Douglas I. Miles has lately been preaching a little something extra to his congregants at Koinonia Baptist Church in Northeast Baltimore - the gospel of tuning in to the presidential debates. His congregation listened - as did many others in the Baltimore area, where ratings collectively were the highest in the country for the first two presidential debates and the vice presidential debate. The third presidential debate between Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain airs at 9 o'clock tonight from Hofstra University on Long Island, N.Y. "Parents and grandparents want their children and grandchildren to be witness to this historic event in the lives of the African-American community and America," Miles said.

NBC close to naming 'Meet the Press' host Sometime between Election Day and early December, NBC News will make a final decision about who will replace Tim Russert and his interim successor, Tom Brokaw, at the helm of Meet the Press, Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, said in an interview. Capus refused to characterize the network's intentions. But it is leaning toward an ensemble of hosts that would be led by Chuck Todd, NBC's political director, and include David Gregory, a correspondent and MSNBC anchor, according to a person who had been briefed on the proposal but was not authorized to comment.

WASHINGTON -- Hypothetical questions can be danger zones in presidential debates. Michael Dukakis learned that, almost two decades ago, when he answered a question about what he would do if his wife were raped and murdered. In last night's opening debate of the 2008 campaign, it was Barack Obama's bad luck to be the first candidate asked how he would respond militarily overseas, as president, to a hypothetical al-Qaida terrorist strike on two U.S. cities. The freshman senator said he'd make sure there was an effective emergency response to the cities that got hit. Then he would find out if there was any intelligence about who might have carried out the attack, "so that we can take potentially some action to dismantle that network."

WASHINGTON -- A new phase of the presidential campaign starts this evening, when the Democratic contenders go head to head in a televised debate. For the first time, voters will be able to make side-by-side comparisons of the candidates, whose campaign efforts, up to now, have been confined mostly to early primary states. What could well be a record number of primary season debates is being planned, with two dozen forums announced already in places as diverse as Orangeburg, S.C., Simi Valley, Calif.

MANY predicted that the three presidential debates and the vice presidential debate would be stifled by the rules negotiated by representatives for each side. Everything from the size of the podiums, camera positions, size of tables and chairs, time constraints for answers and rebuttals, and the exact division between domestic and foreign policy issues was designed to control the environment and prevent the unexpected from happening. From the first minutes of the first debate in Miami, something unexpected did happen: Real issues were being discussed for the first time in weeks and the American public, apparently starved for substance, ate it up. Ratings were higher than expected for all four debates and citizens were passionately talking about them.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- As President Bush and his campaign team rev up their campaign for a race to the finish, they hope to revive the image of the likable, ordinary-guy president whose calm leadership soothed the country after the Sept. 11 attacks before he went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the same time, the president plans to intensify his criticism of John Kerry, continuing to portray the Democratic candidate as a "Massachusetts liberal" whose views put him outside the mainstream.

THIRD PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE 9 p.m. EDT on cable news and broadcast outlets WASHINGTON - The dead-even presidential contest enters its final phase tonight as President Bush and Sen. John Kerry square off over domestic issues in their third and last debate. With less than three weeks until Election Day, the 9 p.m. forum at Arizona State University is the only chance left for the candidates to make their cases before a huge national audience. Their first two encounters, the most-watched White House debates since 1992, reached 62.5 million and 47 million viewers, respectively, according to Neilsen Media Research.

ST. LOUIS - President Bush, in his second debate with Sen. John Kerry the other night, said in reference to the war on terrorism that "the best way to defend America ... is to stay on the offense." The same could be said about defending his job in the White House. In their first two televised confrontations, Mr. Kerry kept the president on the defensive, hammering at him on his decision to invade Iraq and on the mess that has evolved from it. The best offense Mr. Bush seemed able to muster was the old Republican tactic of hanging the "liberal" label on his opponent, with frequent charges of flip-flopping thrown in. The president cited a magazine that named Mr. Kerry "the most liberal senator of all," adding, "And that's saying something in that bunch."

ST. LOUIS - Oops, he did it again. For the second time in a row, Sen. John Kerry put President Bush on the defensive, frustrating Bush's hopes of turning around last week's subpar debate performance with a clearly superior showing last night. The town hall setting, which featured incisive questions from an audience of uncommitted voters, was supposed to work to Bush's affability advantage. And while Bush was more forceful this time around, he wasn't able to put Kerry away. The president again seemed rattled by his rival's tenacious counterattacks, and only began hitting his folksy stride fairly late in the evening.

WASHINGTON - For President Bush, perhaps the best thing he could take from his debate last week with Democratic challenger John Kerry was that there would be two more chances. This evening, when Bush and Kerry meet in St. Louis for their second face-to-face encounter, the president has a chance to wipe away memories of their first meeting in Miami, where he grimaced and scowled repeatedly on national television. With even Bush's boosters giving the president's performance mediocre grades, polls have shown Kerry tightening the race since then.