Bush and Gore Strike Sparks in First Debate

— -- Al Gore and George W. Bush have clashed in the first presidential debate, ranging on issues from prescription drugs to the campaign finance scandals. But who won?

ABCNEWS.comBOSTON, Oct. 4— Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore sparred over the issues in their first

debate, contrasting their visions for the future as they picked apart one another’s chief policy proposals.

Bush painted the vice president as a man who would create “a big, exploding federal government.” Gore, sighing loudly at Bush’s points and occasionally shaking his head and smiling, cast his rival as likely to bust the budget with his $1.3 trillion tax cut.

With the polls deadlocked and tensions running high between their campaigns, Bush and Gore largely stuck to substance and avoided personal attacks in Tuesday night’s event.

But the Texas governor, answering a question from debate moderator Jim Lehrer about character, said he was disappointed in Gore’s involvement in the 1996 campaign fund-raising scandals, particularly his attendance at a Buddhist temple event that has been investigated by the Justice Department.

“I felt like there needed to be a better sense of responsibility of what was going on in the White House,” Bush said in a twist on his oft-repeated pledge to ring in a a new “responsibility era” in the nation. “They’ve moved the sign ‘The buck stops here’ from the Oval Office to ‘The buck stops here’ on the Lincoln Bedroom.”

Gore deflected the criticism. “You may want to focus on scandals, I want to focus on results,” Gore responded.

Gore then turned that into a challenge for Bush to support campaign finance reform.

“This current campaign financing system has not reflected credit on anybody in either party,” Gore said.