Bush, Gore in popularity contest as policy becomes a casualty in a close struggle

In all seriousness, the final two weeks of the US presidential election campaign has begun to sound a bit like actress Sally Field's Oscar acceptance speech a few years ago: "You like me! You really really like me!"

The three televised debates ended this week and kicked off the final 20 days of non-stop campaigning. Americans have heard all they can possibly hear, and probably learned more than they want to know, about how Governor George W Bush and Vice President Al Gore will deal with taxes, social security, education, abortion, the Middle East, health care and prescription drugs, children, teenage pregnancy, gun control, racial issues, and the upcoming World Series baseball game between the Mets and the Yankees. (First time two New York baseball teams have faced off in 44 years, but that's another story.)

What all agree on is that the closest presidential election since John F Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon in 1960 has come down to this: Who do you like the most? Which man do you feel more comfortable with?

The shift away from policy and issues - such as choosing a candidate based on whose economic positions are less likely to initiate a worldwide recession or trigger nuclear war - have voters practically expecting to find Mr Bush or Mr Gore showing up in fuzzy bathrobes to serve morning coffee in their kitchens.

The US Midwest has ended up the final battleground, and it is there that the candidates are seeking to connect with voters based on likeability. A poll by the Pew Research Center shows that seven out of 10 Midwest voters have seen television ads for either Mr Gore or Mr Bush. And what those voters care about is personality and local issues. Only one in five voters there said national issues were important to them.

Michigan, a key battleground state, has been ground zero. On Wednesday, the state was targeted for attack by the Bush women. Wife Laura Bush, mother Barbara, Lynne Cheney, wife of Republican vice-presidential nominee Dick Cheney, and Bush's foreign policy adviser Conoleeza Rice, held a rally and toured the state in a bus adorned with the banner "W stands for Women."

During a stop at the Great Harvest Bread Company in Brighton, Barbara Bush ate bread while wife Laura helped a group of Girl Scouts knead dough. "We're worried about all the women's issues," Barbara Bush told a group of 500 supporters.

So far in Michigan, Mr Gore has held a slim five-point advantage with female voters, according to a Detroit Free Press poll, but Mr Bush is determined to make them like him more. His legislative record on women's rights certainly won't be persuasive, so he will have to rely on the warmer and fuzzier factor.

Everyone involved in the campaign, from the candidates to their strategists to the media itself, wants to know how "real people" feel. This "focus group" concept that has been used effectively in many campaigns, including those of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, has now become pervasive not only in the campaigns but in the media. As the New York Times put it, "Say goodbye to the man on the street. Television wants the crowds on the set."

After the third debate this week, CNN presenter Wolf Blitzer sat around an oval braided rug in Warren, Michigan, at the Bunert School Museum, a oneroom schoolhouse used from 1875 to 1944, surrounded by 17 "real people" from Macomb County, Michigan. A CNN vice-president warmed the group up, telling them, "We want your stories. We want how you feel, how you react. Just be yourselves."

The group, which included housewives and carpenters and secretaries, listened and voiced their concerns. "I'm interested in foreign policy as it pertains to the oil crisis," one of the Detroit men told the local paper.

Meanwhile, other media outlets were gathering their own "real people". Both the New York Times and USA Today gathered focus groups to monitor the debates.

Mr Gore, on the other hand, had already been trundling around with his own hand-picked group of real people, his 14 "citizen advisers" whose advice to him has been meant to augment the slick strategies of his high-paid political professionals.

The "advisers" made up of a Pennsylvania steelworker, a Florida pensioner, and a school principal from Michigan among others, had given him advice during the first two debates. Although respected for his command of the issues, Mr Gore was not perceived as likeable during those two outings by the majority of viewers.

On the third outing, several of his citizen advisers told him, "Just be yourself." Mr Gore did just that. He resumed his more naturally combative stance. . . and again was perceived as not "likeable".

So it comes down to this; the "real people" advisers tell the candidate "Just be Yourself." The media professionals advise the focus groups "Just be Yourself." And with an extraordinarily high percentage of undecided voters still waffling, it turns out the electorate doesn't really "like" anybody in the race.

Could it be time for real issues to make a comeback?