The campaigns are focusing on little more than 1m floating voters in a handful of swing states, where many people say they are waiting for this year's three debates between the vice-president, Al Gore, and governor George W Bush to make up their minds. Since then they have become unavoidable, as Mr Bush discovered when his attempt to renegotiate the debates, shifting the encounters to chat shows, made him look nervous and evasive. Ted Sorensen, a key Kennedy aide who later helped to coach Jimmy Carter and Mike Dukakis for their presidential debates, believes they have become an essential part of the democratic process. You can memorise arguments, but it is understanding issues which is necessary to avoid stumbles. The importance of debates is reflected in the enormous lengths the opposing camps go to in grooming their candidates for the event.
Preparations start months in advance.
This weekend, in the run-up to the first debate in Boston on Tuesday, both candidates will leave the campaign trail for dress rehearsals as meticulously prepared as anything on Broadway. Each nominee has publicly played down the extent of his preparations, but their studied insouciance is all part of the ritual manoeuvring. May. This weekend he will hold a mock debate at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, where the family gym has been converted into a television studio, complete with lecterns, lights, cameras and a mock Al Gore, who will be played by a New Hampshire senator, Judd Gregg. It is a role he has perfected since performing as the slightly stiff and earnest vice-president in 1996, when he was advising the Republican nominee for the job, Jack Kemp. However, Mr Bush's preparations look slapdash compared to the lengths the vice-president is going to.