WASHINGTON - At their best, this month's presidential debates could showcase Al Gore's mastery of detail and George W. Bush's engaging personality. At worst, they could play out more like a battle of sanctimony vs. peevishness.
The trio of debates - 4 hours in all beginning Tuesday - will give millions of voters their last best chance to take the measure of the men who would be president.
''I don't think they're looking for a person who will win a college debate series,'' said Stanley Renshon, a City University of New York political scientist and psychoanalyst. ''They're looking for a person who's in command of their views. ... They're looking for a person who is not afraid to state what they think.''
Each candidate has strengths to play up and weaknesses to overcome.
Gore, by far the more experienced debater, is well known for his command of policy details. He can turn people off, though, when he pushes too hard.
''There's a kind of sanctimonious aggressiveness to Al Gore that I would call his principal weakness when he gets mobilized in an attack mode in a debate,'' said Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas political scientist. ''If he seems to be bullying, his talents don't do him any good.''
And Gore can get into trouble for overreaching when he's spewing out all those facts - for example, his recent claim that his mother-in-law had to pay more than his dog for the same arthritis medicine. It turned out the figures came from a study, not Gore's family.
There's also the old rap about Gore's plodding rhetoric, which feeds into the perception that he's lecturing.
''He adopts a singsong voice, which is the rhetorical equivalent of 'Look, you fool,''' said Renshon. ''It'll be interesting to hear how George Bush handles Mr. Gore's tendency to climb up on a soap box and lecture.''
During his primary-campaign debates with Bill Bradley, Gore often sounded as if he were talking down to the former senator, as when he contended that Bradley ''gets a little out of sorts ... when I talk about the substance'' of his policies.
Bush's strengths and weaknesses are almost the flip side of Gore's: His best weapons are his chatty affability and ability to connect with voters one-on-one; his soft spots are a perceived lack of depth on issues and a smirky defensiveness.
Steve Forbes, who went up against Bush in the GOP primary debates, said that while the Texas governor ''didn't do well at the beginning, he showed he could re-gear. ... Even though it's a formal setting, I think he'll be relaxed enough to show some of that easygoing charm.''
Some of Bush's best moments in the primary debates came when he was able to chat up his audience with easy self assurance. For example, he got roars of approval for his lighthearted answer to a question about his biggest mistake, confessing that as a baseball team owner, he had ''signed off on that wonderful transaction: Sammy Sosa for Harold Baines.''
But at other times, Bush gave rambling answers that did nothing to quell reservations about his credentials as a world leader. Asked if he would meet with the Russian president as the GOP presidential nominee, Bush said, ''I don't know. I don't know. Probably not. Maybe.''
Robin Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, said Bush's difficulty sometimes in getting out an articulate, grammatical sentence is ''forgivable in one-on-one talk,'' but Americans could see it differently in a more formal debate format.
Especially if the awkward elocution winds up being replayed over and over as a TV soundbite. That's just what happened after Bush recently botched his pronunciation of subliminal - repeatedly saying ''subliminable.''
Another debating danger for Bush, observers say, is that he can turn peevish when put on the defensive.
''There's a kind of shortness, a dismissive tone that slips in,'' says Fields. ''He's got to avoid projecting anything ... to suggest that he's arrogant.''
In the primary debates, Bush was sometimes snappish with his opponents, dismissively telling one rival, ''You don't know my record,'' and on several occasions complaining, ''Let me finish! Let me finish!''
If Gore has the experience edge at the debate lectern, Bush has the advantage of low expectations.
But Bill Miller, a Texas political consultant who has represented candidates from both parties, says Bush shouldn't be underestimated.
''He's got a strong competitive streak in him,'' Miller said. ''He's going to rise to the level of the competition.''
