September 30, 2004 -- MIAMI — The stakes couldn't be higher as President Bush and Democrat John Kerry face off at tonight's first presidential debate.

Nearly a third of voters say it could help decide the race — 19 percent say the debates are "extremely" important, and 12 percent say quite important, an NBC News poll found.

And, if history is any guide, tonight's first debate gets the biggest audience of the three planned — plus one for the running mates.

But the poll also shows lines are hardening early, since 41 percent say the debates won't affect their decision— up from 28 percent before the first 2000 debate.

The Miami heat is really on Kerry, since Bush now has a solid national lead of around 6 points — it was Bush 51, Kerry 45 and Ralph Nader 2 among likely voters in a new Los Angeles Times national poll.

Bush also leads in most battleground states — including several, like Wisconsin and Iowa, that Al Gore won in 2000 — and seems to have a widening lead of up to 9 points in Florida.

Unless Kerry finds a way to change the dynamic tonight — and outline a clear position on Iraq — the race could be all over.

"Kerry needs a knockout. It's like boxing — Bush is the champion, and if the champion is still standing at the end, he wins," said Quinnipiac University polling director Maurice Carroll.

Foreign policy — above all, Iraq — is the center of tonight's 90-minute TV debate at the University of Miami in Coral Gables.

Kerry faces the complex task of selling himself as a tough, strong leader and coming across as more likeable than in the past. Right now, Bush gets much higher ratings for both leadership and likeability.

But heading into the face-off, Kerry stumbled as he tried to explain his bizarre remark on funding the Iraq war: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

"It was just a very inarticulate way of saying something and I had one of those inarticulate moments late in the evening when I was dead tired," Kerry told ABC's Diane Sawyer.

Republicans pounced, noting that it was noontime when Kerry made that remark.

Kerry spokesman David Wade shot back, "Better an inarticulate moment than an inarticulate policy" — but that didn't explain why Kerry blamed late-night weariness for a midday blunder.

Other Democrats groaned, recalling how Al Gore got tripped up badly in the 2000 debates by small factual blunders that Bush aides skillfully used to portray him as a serial exaggerator.

Kerry vowed to unmask tonight what he portrays as lies in the Bush-Cheney record, saying in a fund-raising e-mail, "The truth is catching up with them."

In many debates, the X-factor is something physical — like a sweaty-faced Richard Nixon's 5 o'clock shadow in his 1960 debate against John F. Kennedy — and Vice President Dick Cheney's wife, Lynne, yesterday tried to aim the spotlight at Kerry's odd new orange tan.

Appearing with her husband in Duluth, Minn., where hosts at a Q&A wore orange shirts, Mrs. Cheney quipped, "What do those orange shirts remind you of? How about John Kerry's suntan?"

The vice president also rejected Kerry-led Democratic efforts to suggest that Bush has a secret plan to restore the military draft if he's re-elected. "Hogwash. Not true," Cheney said.

Women are a special target at tonight's debate, since Bush is way ahead among men.

Independent groups on both sides yesterday aired new ads aiming to reach women on the issues of war and peace. In an anti-Bush ad, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, Pennsylvanian Cindy Sheehan, sobs as she tells of his death and says of Bush, "You haven't been honest with us" on the war.

A new anti-Kerry ad stars two wives of Vietnam POWs who say Kerry "gave aid and comfort to the enemy" by testifying, after he came back from Vietnam, that other U.S. troops committed war crimes. It's from the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

New state polls had mostly bad news for Kerry —a CNN poll showed Bush with a Florida lead of 52 to 43 percent among likely voters.

In Pennsylvania — a state that Al Gore won in 2000 — CNN found Bush with a 49 to 46 percent likely voter lead. New Jersey is a must-win for Kerry, but it was a dead heat, as in other recent polls.

In Ohio, Kerry got better news, since Bush's lead was just 49 to 47 percent among likely voters.

This article was published by The New York Post.