BUSH MESSAGE WAS LOST AT GREAT DEBATE

The Great Debate in St. Louis wasn't really a debate at all. Three candidates with three questioners and a moderator doesn't a debate make. It was a made-for-television joint presentation, highly structured and highly controlled yet enormously interesting.

Winners and losers. All post-debate polls declare either Ross Perot or Bill Clinton to be the clear winners and George Bush the clear loser.

Perot is a master of the one-liner. He can solve anything in 25 words or less sometimes 10 words. He was cute and an enormous crowd pleaser. He's up in the polls. His numbers will be dropping by election day as voters decide between reality and fantasy. It's one thing to chuckle at Perot; it's another thing to vote for him.

Clinton was disciplined and calculatingly cautious no blunders, no gaffes, no exclamations. His job was to look and act presidential and to sound knowledgeable. In terms of strategy, he's like the old coach Woody Hayes at Ohio State. When you've got a 14 point lead, watch the clock and grind it out.

Bush needed a clear win. He didn't get it. If Bush had a half-way decent economy backing him up, his debate performance would have been fully sufficient to support a winning candidacy. With a deplorable economy hanging over him, his performance wasn't sufficient to save his presidency.

Perot's presence. This was at the insistence of Jim Baker and will go down as the biggest blunder of his golden political career. Almost every word uttered by Perot was an indictment of the Bush policies. Bush had to defend himself against two challengers. Any opportunity that Bush might have had for a decisive, one-on-one face-down confrontation with Clinton was diffused by the Perot presence.

Perot genuinely enjoyed the evening. It's obvious that he loves to sock it to George Bush. He even came to Bill Clinton's defense on the so-called Oxford issue. Clinton treats Perot very gingerly like his favorite uncle.

Clinton's best counter punch was on Bush's patriotism challenge; the "I'm not questioning Governor Clinton's patriotism, but..." technique. Bush's father had been an anti-Joe McCarthy, Eastern Establishment Republican U.S. Senator. He was from the Dewey-Eisenhower wing of the Republican party. He despised Joe McCarthy as an uncouth, ill-mannered character assassin.

Clinton's missed opportunity. Bush, in his things-will-get-better mode, said that after the election he would ask Jim Baker to do for the economy and domestic affairs what he, Baker, had done for foreign policy. Clinton could have hit this one out of the park: the idea that after three years and 10 months of his presidency and even after the election, the president would finally assign his best talent to look after the country's domestic ills. Clinton heard it, but decided to play it cool.

Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady, Budget Director Richard Darman and Chief Economist Michael Boskin also heard it. They got the pink slip. They need not worry too much. They won't be alone at the exit door.