101.   One week from today, Bill Clinton and Bob Dole will meet for the first presidential debate of the season.

102.   People forget that after Labor Day, Dole has barely four weeks to pull abreast of the president before their first debate.

103.   Peter Reuter, a drug-policy expert, reckons the controversy over Mexico has prompted the first serious debate in the United States on the subject.

104.   Rove said he wishes now that he had not let Bush skip the first debate in New Hampshire.

105.   Sen. John F. Kerry and Gov. William F. Weld will share the stage at Faneuil Hall Monday night in the first televised debate of their marathon US Senate battle.

106.   She had watched the first debate, but not much of the second.

107.   Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., suggested that Lehrer did not adequately rein in Vice President Al Gore during the first debate.

108.   Similarly, a Field Poll released this week, which showed Gore well ahead in California, asked voters about the first presidential debate.

109.   Since the first debate, major developments have thrust foreign policy back into the forefront of the news.

110.   Since the first Democratic debate in New Hampshire last fall, each meeting between the two has grown more barbed and confrontational.