Both candidates were the children of famous politicians and grew up in the public spotlight, eventually attending Ivy League universities and breaking into their fathers' profession at a later stage in life.

Some analysts and voters also note that their views are also very similar. Both emphasize education reform, free trade and other mainstream, middle-of-the-road political values.

In the Meeting Place address, Gore attempted to show himself as more experienced and knowledgeable than Bush in the arena of foreign affairs, emphasizing the policies he has worked on as vice president, the nations he has visited and world leaders he has met with during his political career.

Gore devoted the first portion of his remarks to explaining his concept of a "new security agenda" combing what he called "classic security"--policies which focus on war and peace among states--with the realities of economic and political interdependence of the post-Cold War era.

"We are now in a new era...a global age," Gore said. "Like it or not, we live in an age when our destinies and the destinies of billions of people around the globe are increasingly intertwined. When our grand domestic and international challenges are also intertwined. We should neither bemoan nor naively idealize this new reality. We should deal with it."

Gore focused on the concept of "forward engagement," a policy which advocates preventive measures by the United States to stop conflicts before they start in areas of national interest.

"We need a new security agenda for the global age based on forward engagement," Gore said. "Isolationism and protectionism were dangerously wrong in the industrial age--and they are still wrong and even more dangerous in this new global age."