US: Cue, enter, proceed to centre stage, shake hands, turn, walk to podium. For a staged debate it's appropriate that there should be precise stage directions. The first presidential debate between President George Bush and challenger John Kerry, in Coral Gables, Florida tonight, will be the most choreographed in history.
The two sides will work off a 32-page set of directions, worked out over weeks of haggling. They have to remember their moves, not just their lines. When the two candidates walk to their podiums they will find the lecterns are set exactly 10 feet apart and equally canted toward centre stage. They are precisely 4ft 2in high. The distance between the two lecterns is important for Mr Bush, as it obscures the height difference between the 5ft 11in president and the 6ft 4in Massachusetts senator.
The agreement stipulates who can stand in the wings, the type of paper for making notes, and even the temperature of the hall. The temperature is a crucial issue for John Kerry, who sweats, where George Bush does not.
Everyone remembers the first ever presidential debate which John F Kennedy won handily as beads of perspiration rolled down Richard Nixon's face. The Kerry people eventually agreed that "an appropriate temperature according to industry standards" should be maintained in the auditorium, which in air-conditioned Florida means decidedly chilly.
There is a time limit on answers from moderator Jim Lerher of PBS, with warning lights visible to the audience to see who is going on too long. The agreement also confines TV coverage to a pool camera and instructs the crews not to show one candidate when another is speaking. The networks are refusing to cooperate.
"Because of journalistic standards, we're not going to follow outside restrictions," said a Fox News spokesman, which will operate the pool camera. NBC retorted that "This is a news pool, and we are not subject to agreements between candidates."
The Commission on Presidential Debates, which is playing host at the site, has tried to insist on adherence to the rules but is aware restrictions on the networks are unenforceable. If the TV crews had followed similar rules in 2000 no one would have seen Al Gore sighing in exasperation - which made viewers more sympathetic to the Republican.
Another regulation is that the debaters will not leave their lecterns and invade each other's 'space', as Al Gore did. The former vice president advised Mr Kerry yesterday on how to combat his opponent. He should recall broken promises made by Mr Bush in the 2000 debates, he wrote in the New York Times. "Comparing these grandiose promises to his failed record, it's enough to make anyone want to, well, sigh," he wrote. He warned that Mr Bush was an underrated debater who had made lowering expectations to a high art.
The Bush campaign has, for its part, been hyping John Kerry's debating skills. He's the best debater ever to run for president, even "better than Cicero," said Bush strategist Matthew Dowd.
Whatever debating skills he has, the third candidate in the presidential race, Ralph Nader, has been shut out of tonight's exchange. But having secured a spot last week on Florida's ballot, the independent anti-war, pro-consumer activist turned up here in Coral Gables to wish a plague on both houses.
Corporations poured millions of dollars into both campaigns, he told an auditorium of attentive students at Miami University.
"Most of you grow up silly," he said, referring to the influence of corporate-driven television. Nader received 97,421 votes in Florida in 2000, which Bush won when the Supreme Court stopped counting as he was ahead by 537, and Democrats have blamed him for Al Gore's defeat. Most people believed that politics in America was broken, corrupt and narcissistic, Nader said, and simply reflected "the reelection tactics of the politicians who take their orders from the corporate paymasters."
Mr Bush arrived in Florida yesterday to survey damage from the last of four hurricanes, all of which spared Miami, and to campaign for Florida's 27 electoral votes. Polls show a close race here but surveys have been hampered as people try to cope with the devastation caused by the hurricanes.
Voting glitches may also be a problem that could once more delay the Florida count, according to a five-member team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It cited problems with voter registration lists and provisional and absentee ballots, allegations of voter intimidation and slow implementation of the Help America Vote Act.
"In general, the nationwide replacement of voting equipment, inspired by the disputes witnessed during the 2000 elections, primarily in Florida, may potentially become a source of even greater controversy during the forthcoming elections," said the 11-page report. Many of the new touch-screen machines that will be used by up to 50 million voters on November 2nd do not produce the paper ballots needed for a manual recount of votes, the report said.