The headlines the morning after played it safe: "No knockout punches in first debate", said one. It was an achievement for George W. Bush, though, that he was still on his feet after 90 minutes with the most feared debater in US politics.
Al Gore is battle-hardened in verbal jousting after an estimated 40 public debates over 16 years in Congress and eight years in the vice-presidency, including a previous run for the White House in 1988.
Bush debated twice in winning two terms as governor of Texas. In this year's primary elections, he debated six times and was sometimes out-pointed by lesser-known Republican rivals. He has also committed numerous verbal gaffes and has mixed up billions with trillions.
In other words he risked being chopped liver, as the Americans put it, after taking on the man who in his time has stitched up Ross Perot, Jack Kemp and Dan Quayle.
Bush also had to overcome the fairly widespread impression that he is an intellectual lightweight who is happier talking about baseball than gross national product. Voters might forgive verbal fluffs such as calling Greeks "Grecians" or peacemakers "pacemakers" in the heat of the moment, but they want to see if a man running for president has a grasp of the main issues of the day and can articulate them.
For the past weeks, political programmes on TV have played over and over what are seen as the highlights of presidential debates going back to the first televised one between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960. However, all the emphasis was on the point-scoring, such as when Ronald Reagan shook his head at Jimmy Carter saying, "There you go again." This was seen as a masterful put-down of the cleverer Carter.
Looking twice at his watch in the debate in 1992 with Bill Clinton and Ross Perot virtually lost George Bush snr the presidency, if you can believe the pundits.
So it is not enough for presidential candidates to have a clear grasp of issues and policies. They have to look good and appear cool. Of course they must also avoid clangers such as Gerald Ford saying that Poland in 1976 was not under Soviet domination - but he still almost beat Carter.
George Bush jnr probably surprised most viewers on Tuesday night by being able to hold his own with Gore on the details of tax cuts, prescription drugs for senior citizens, social security, education, abortion and appointments to the Supreme Court. Gore, not surprisingly, showed a greater professionalism on the questions dealing with foreign policy but Bush answered carefully and avoided any blunders.
The early polls on who won the debate are almost certainly unreliable but for what they are worth, Gore came out on top in those carried out by the major TV networks. A more significant result may be that only 3 per cent said that watching the debate would make them change their vote.
It is the most closely contested election in decades. There are two more presidential debates in the five weeks that remain before the election, so there is plenty of scope for Bush to mangle his responses or for Gore to irritate viewers by his condescending tone and impatience with an opponent he sees as inferior.
This was displayed on Tuesday night by loud sighs and grimaces while Bush was talking.
Gore did refrain from any personal attacks even when Bush brought up the fund-raising abuses of the previous election involving getting cheques from monks and nuns in a Buddhist temple and sleep-overs in the Lincoln bedroom in the White House for the big Democratic donors.
While presidential candidates are expected to be able to mix it on policy issues such as whether tax cuts should be for everybody or just the less well-off, viewers are said to become uncomfortable when the issue of character is raised, with its undertones of shady doings in the White House. Bush, though, was replying to a question on the character of Gore which was asked by the moderator.
He would have been foolish to pass up the opportunity.