This has been the strangest of American election campaigns; the most exciting in 40 years in terms of the closeness of the contest, yet one in which both major candidates have utterly failed to capture the national imagination. The lead in the polls has changed hands half a dozen times since September and, even at this late stage, only the very bravest dare forecast the outcome.

Campaigning, alas, tends to bring out the worst in Gore. As the standard-bearer of the incumbent party, he should have long since locked up this election. Yet his turgid style, his maddening tendency to condescension, and his craven unwillingness to depart from the script provided by his advisers have combined to squander the "peace and prosperity" factor that should have guaranteed victory.

It should be said, too, that his Republican opponent, George W Bush, has improved considerably as the campaign has progressed. Not only has he won the personality contest, a vital component of any American election, hands down; he has held his own in the second debate, adroitly focused his attack on Gore's weak points, and avoided the gaffes that everyone expected. In short, he has done enou

Gore supports using $2.2 trillion of the Social Security surpluses to shore up the program and pay down the debt, thus saving billions of dollars in interest, which can be redirected to ensuring the solvency of the Social Security trust fund until at least 2050. He supports the elimination of the Social Security earnings limit, which the president signed into law on April 7, 2000. Gore supports an increase in benefits for widows and eliminating the "motherhood penalty" -- the resulting reduction in benefits for women who take time off from work to raise children. "I do not believe it's right to play games with Social Security or pit young against old in a scramble to fulfill extravagant and competing campaign promises," he said in a speech in Kissimmee, in central Florida. "I believe we have to strengthen Social Security by giving unprecedented new opportunities for families to save more, invest more and get higher returns," Gore said. Bush does not rule out the possibility of rising the eligibility age for baby boom-era recipients as part of trade-off for private investment accounts.

In the field of education Gore says: "We can't reform education with half an agenda. We can't make education our top priority if huge tax cuts for the wealthy are already the first, second, and third priority. That's really the choice we face: a commitment to education for life or a set of priorities that could leave us with budget deficits for life." He argues that if you drain the money away from the public schools for private vouchers, it hurts the public schools. George W. Bush has a

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