Most people who vote in next month's election will not enter their polling places able to pass a pop quiz on the details of each candidate's positions. Except for activists and the few for whom politics is life, most will vote their perceptions about which one can be trusted to say what he means and mean what he says. Despite Vice President Al Gore's better speaking and walking skills in the third debate, a fair observer would have to concede the trust factor and possibly the election to Gov. George W. Bush. Gore was not as blatant in his exaggerations and misstatements as in the previous two debates, but there were plenty of inaccuracies. The Washington Post reported last week that the military is suffering from a mass exodus of captains from its ranks.
Recruitment is down.
Morale is low. Gore claimed credit for cutting government, but most of the reductions came from the Pentagon. Gore's other major whopper was that pharmaceutical companies spend more money on advertising and promotion than on research and development. That is many times the amount spent on advertising and promotion, which Gore implied is a bad thing. Gore frequently descended into the minutiae of his various plans on taxes, education and health care, but Bush kept coming back to his strongest themes, leaving it to others to sort out Gore's political sleights of hand.