This second one was much better than the first, primarily because both men were not only more civil, they seemed much more natural. Gore has long had the problem of seeming to be a male version of the mythical Daphne, the nymph of Greek imagination who turned into a laurel tree while running. In a one-on-one situation, away from the flashbulbs and the podium, Gore is a witty, charming and quite intelligent man.

This was the first time I saw Gore actually come off as himself in a public situation. He seemed relaxed, his sense of humor wasn't forced, there appeared to be an informing intelligence behind every word, he gave no impression of being afraid of military use when necessary and there wasn't the unnecessary condescension, which should never expose itself because it reads to an audience as either unattractive or unearned arrogance. He fully avoided the trap that one guy who hates Bush said about the first debate, "Why does Gore look as though he likes coming off as a combination of a school marm and a big drip of egotistical snot?"

I also thought that Bush came off as himself, as natural and far more informed about the nature of the world at large than he has thus far been given credit for, even if he did no more than cram for this debate (which is what politicians do all of the time, the best of them absorbing information at a high velocity and incorporating it into the DNA basic to the arguments that drive their policy positions and the legislation they propose or oppose). Bush was so swift on some of the foreign policy issues that he seemed to have beaten Gore to some of his positions on the military, use of military force, foreign aid and the problems of how to handle aid when faced with corrupt foreign governments. He, too, had a sense of humor, a down-home wit that served him well.

Bush also seemed to have a good grasp of something very profound about "racial profiling" -- which is that the very worst version of it is the failure to educate due to a lack of commitment based on color. His answer to Gore, about advocating a new hate crimes law, was very strong -- he responded by saying that the murder of James Byrd was a hate crime because hate is always behind murder.

Gore did not draw blood when he tried to stick on the issues of race and tax cuts, but he did get more than a trickle when stating that Texas was positioned as both the 49th and 50th state on some healthcare issues. But Gore put himself in potential trouble at the end when the issue of exaggeration came up. He talked as though he had only made some mistakes, not willfully told untruths. The vice president might well have done himself some good by facing up to what has been a tendency to play plastic man with the truth and promise not to do it again. Sometimes, confession is good for the polls and for the polling booths -- especially when connected to a believable vow.

Todd Gitlin, professor of culture, journalism and sociology at New York University

Bush speaks and smiles as if he's the man who presides over the current prosperity. This is the voice of smooth complacency. The world is going the right way, starting with the state of Texas, never mind what you've heard from unreliable sources.

He's the man for cheerful maintenance. He's the president of progress, the good ole boy at the country club. He's right there with "What the heck" and "I've been known to mangle a 'syl-la-bul' or two." Sounds like a fun four years.

Gore sounds tense and urgent. He's not the voice of achievement; he's the voice of will. He has the narrowed eyes and controlled speech of a crusader. He speaks in the imperative voice. He's all earnestness. He wants us to think about the fate of the Earth and about other things that a lot of people would just as soon not think about. He's indignant about injustice, focused on "getting the big things right." Bush is just indignant about Gore. Fearful of sounding strident, Gore is reluctant to pin the Republican label on Bush, while Bush triangulates.

And Jim Lehrer? Tolerant, mannerly, accepting of distortion, unprobing when Bush denies again and again that he has anything in common with the Republican Congress that has shared in government for the last eight years.

Ben Stein, host of the Comedy Central program "Win Ben Stein's Money"

The first mistake that Gore made -- and this totally slipped by everybody -- is saying we no longer have a problem with trade imbalances, which is not true. They are astonishingly big. The only thing is that nobody worries about them anymore because of the economic expansion.

That wasn't the only mistake he made. Gore repeated that the Bush tax plan benefits go to the wealthiest 1 percent, or as he said Wednesday night, the richest of the rich, which is simply not true. Bush's proposal to end the estate tax would benefit the wealthy. As for the income tax, after the implementation of the Bush plan, the wealthy would actually be paying a greater portion of the income tax than in the Gore plan. What the vice president keeps doing is conflating Bush's proposals on the estate tax and the income tax.

I was shocked at Gore's saying that we need something like a Marshall Plan for Africa like we had in Europe after World War II. Anyone with even a modest knowledge of history knows that the situations are totally different. Europe had been devastated by war and was put in a temporary poverty, but the population had great economic skills. In Africa, you're talking about countries that are more or less permanently impoverished by their inhabitants' lack of economic and intellectual capital. What Gore said shows extreme ignorance of history.

I thought the question about hate crime was a very odd question. Gore said that there was no hate crime law in Texas, and Bush said there already is one. Bush made a mistake by not simply saying, "I don't know what you're talking about. We already have a hate crime law." He did hit the thing right out of the park on the James Byrd case, when he said, "Look, we are already executing the criminals. What could be harsher than that?"

As for the uninsured children, the reason so few children in Texas are insured is because the state has a huge percentage of illegal aliens and children of illegal aliens in the population. Those people don't have many things that middle-class people have. If you were to take out the illegal immigrants, Texas' insurance rate would be normal.

The dynamic of the evening was very interesting. At the beginning, when the topic was foreign policy, Bush was very confident, but when they got back to talking about Texas, he wasn't. I think it's unfortunate that he's not a very aggressive debater.

David Horowitz, Salon columnist

This was a big knockdown for Bush. He revealed a personality that was animated, warm, bighearted and civilly forceful. He showed he was no pushover. He showed -- contrary to what his detractors say -- that he had a brain and a command of details. These are the two key character tests for him in this campaign. He was also tolerant, inclusive, "reasonable" and centrist -- but innovative -- in his policy positions: "a conservative with compassion." He allowed Gore no real daylight on the caring issues, and thereby made the character issue the primary focus of this debate. Facing a man who was publicly straining to correct himself for fibbing, winning the character issue was a piece of cake for Bush.

Gore's strategy of self-control, on the other hand, worked relentlessly against him in this informal setting. He seemed icy and cold, back to the automaton image, programmed to the core. Moreover, Gore's new self-control strategy allowed Bush to shine -- which Gore could not afford to let him do. For example, when Gore approached Bush's jugular on Texas, he could not go in for the kill, which is fatal for the attacker in this situation. You cannot blast Texas as the bottom of the barrel and then allow the target to come back. When Bush said (essentially), There you go exaggerating again, you don't know what you're talking about, we have spent billions on this, we have improved as fast as any state, while you've let the same problem get worse on your watch, Gore had to come back and crush him. But he didn't. That undermined his credibility even further.

The debate left me more confident than ever that Bush not only will endure in this contest but will prevail.

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