WHILE the Republican challenger, Mr Bob Dole, did better in the first presidential campaign debate than expected, he is not seen to have done well enough to close the gap with President Clinton.
The second and last face to face debate on October 16th in San Diego will be in a "town hall format" which is better suited to Mr Clinton's talent for familiar contact with audiences.
Instant polls taken after Sunday night's debate in Hartford, Connecticut, were not encouraging for Mr Dole. Before the debate he was trailing Mr Clinton by 16 points in a daily tracking poll.
After the debate, a CBS poll showed that 92 per cent of those surveyed would not change their votes. Two per cent switched to Mr Clinton and 2 per cent to Mr Dole.
There was widespread relief in the Dole camp that the 73 year old former senator had performed well in the debate with the 50 year old President. Mr Dole's flashes of humour helped to change the popular perception of a dour and sarcastic personality.
Even the Clinton camp conceded that Mr Dole had probably done better than expected.
Many commentators called the contest a draw, seeing that neither opponent scored a knock out punch. But it was noted that Mr Dole failed to take advantage of a question from the moderator, Jim Lehrer, on Mr Clinton's character, where he is seen to be vulnerable because of Whitewater and other alleged scandals.
Mr Dole had arranged, however, for a front row seat at the debate for the former head of the White House travel office, Mr Billy Dale, whose dismissal by the Clinton administration has led to a lengthy congressional inquiry which has been especially embarrassing for Mrs Hillary Clinton.
Mr Dole tried from the beginning to put the emphasis on "trust", which was seen as a non explicit way of raising the Clinton "character" issue.
The President repeatedly listed the legislation passed during his term of office and appealed to the estimated 100 million viewers to "let's keep it going". "Four years ago you took me on faith. Now there's a record . . . a strong America at peace. We are better off than we were four years ago."
Mr Dole got the first laugh of the night when he told Mr Clinton that "you're better off Saddam Hussein is better off".
Mr Clinton made one of his sharpest attacks when he criticised Mr Dole for "bragging" to tobacco interests about defending them and charged that Mr Dole and the House Speaker, Mr Newt Gingrich, invited polluters into the halls of Congress to help rewrite environmental legislation.
On the economic issues which dominated the debate, the two men attacked each other's figures over the 15 per cent tax cut proposed by Mr Dole but left the audience little the wiser. Some of the sharpest exchanges were over the Clinton campaign's TV ads depicting Mr Dole as an opponent of Medicare for pensioners because he voted against it back in 1965.
Mr Dole told Mr Clinton: "You have already spent 45 million scaring the seniors and tearing me apart. It's time to have a truce.
Mr Dole also tried to follow up on his accusation that the President is engaged in a "photo op foreign policy" which is really a catalogue of failures in places like the Middle East, Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti and Northern Ireland.
Education also figured in the debate, especially on the question of "free choice" of school which the Republicans charge is diminished with the Clinton policies although he sends his daughter to a private school in Washington. But Mr Dole had to defend his policy of abolishing the Department of Education.