Minutes after Wednesday's debate in Hanover, N.H., between democratic presidential candidates Al Gore '69 and Bill Bradley, reporters gathered to interview the candidates' staff--and each other.

In the titanic press room at Dartmouth College's Moore Theater, cabinet secretaries mingled in the crowd. Unlikely pairs formed--conservative commentator Bob Novak chatted with Newsweek's leftish Jonathan H. Alter '79, who is also a Crimson editor.

As the next day's stories were being written and filed, everyone was talking about who won and who lost.

This is where "conventional wisdom" is born.

Wednesday night's debate marked perhaps the first time that many prospective Democratic voters in New Hampshire could see Al Gore unfiltered.

But minutes after the debate was over, journalists were already "spinning" the debate in light of Gore's recent slide in the polls. Immediately, whatever the American public thought about the debate became entangled with the media's collective musings about the outcome.

The conventional wisdom said Gore's substantive message was strong. He attacked Bradley's plan to spend the federal budget surplus and sought repeatedly to distinguish his position from that of his opponent's.

While his performance was energetic, it lacked spontaneity, they said. He tried too hard.