There were no “mixed messages” on the style front during last night’s debate. President Bush brought the personality, and Senator Kerry played the preacher.

The 90-minute confrontation turned up some memorable moments.

Mr. Bush brought a light, almost casual air to the stage. Wearing a deep blue suit and a blue tie, he leaned forward with his elbows on the podium for much of the debate. The president shifted his weight frequently from side to side, using all the space around him without moving from behind his podium – which would have violated one of the numerous debate rules. If he had a signature move, it was the dip or duck of the head, combined with an outward reach of the hand.

Mr. Kerry, by contrast, stood straight as an arrow and moved his body infrequently, though his hands did the talking as they swept from side to side. Wearing a dark navy suit and a red tie – which might have looked better had the knot been wider – Mr. Kerry kept a solemn, grave demeanor. He made points with reserved dignity and touched his hand to his chest as if to show that he could discuss lofty things in an aristocratic, measured manner.

If there were mistakes on style, they were in Mr. Bush’s facial expressions. The president often looked like a stern parent observing a misbehaving child. He pursed his lips and swished his mouth around as Mr. Kerry went on the attack. He took some long pauses interrupted by a few thought moans, and relied on a tone of voice inflected with defensiveness: “I know that,” he said when Mr. Kerry accused him of not knowing who had attacked America.

Still, the pauses and pursed lips delivered the sense that there was an individual with normal human reactions and a personality – whereas Mr. Kerry was distant and so very controlled. At times he seemed to drone on, hurling complaints about Mr. Bush and trying to pack as many words into his time as possible. His list of military men who have supported him started to sound like a list of ships in an epic poem.

Mr. Bush directed his comments to the moderator, PBS’s Jim Lehrer, as if the two of them were kicking back with beers on the front porch. He reinforced the idea of himself as a compassionate man by telling the story of his visit with a mother who had lost a son in the war. He tried to show he’s an everyman when he cracked wise about trying to keep his daughters on a leash.

And what of the Kerry “tan”? The Massachusetts senator’s skin tone seemed to have faded into a level of normalcy, but it was Mr. Bush who looked a tad more orange than normal. The effect was most likely due to a too dark shade of pancake applied to his face.

For Mr. Kerry, the debate was a tryout, an audition for the role of president. Can he look and sound the part? Or have the voters already found what they’re looking for?

His treatment of the role is grandfatherly. He did nothing to combat the notion of him as patrician. Mr. Bush, by contrast, seems inspired by the fun, older uncle, the one with the card tricks, the advice, the slaps on the back.

And the president certainly had the lines: “That’s totally absurd”; “Whoo, that’s a loaded question”; “I just know how this world works.”

And of course he kept a steady drumbeat of “mixed messages” by “my opponent,” as well as repetition of “the wrong war” sequence.

Mr. Kerry’s only go-to phrase seemed to be “more of the same.”

Though the topic of last night’s debate was arguably the most important of the three scheduled face-offs between the presidential candidates, style and delivery, as usual, probably mattered most.