Debates sponsored by single-issue interest groups -- in 2008, Democratic candidates sparred in forums provided by the AFL-CIO and LGBT advocates -- can yield similarly focused contests.
Much pageantry through the centuries has focused on contests or races.
But the attention in this contest had focused on the competition of spouses, between Ms. Tomalin's biography of the 17th-century British diarist Samuel Pepys, Samuel Pepyss: The Unequalled Self," and Mr. Frayn's novel "Spies," set in World War II London.
Ultimately, the contest focused on Florida.
In 2009, the contest focused on water-efficiency solutions.
Once those Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents become focused on the contest, they will quickly unite behind the vice president, Mr. Gore's allies assert.
The trap in which David Cameron hopes to catch Labour is the same as Baldwin's and Thatcher's: push Labour into an electoral contest focused on cuts alone.
Dr. Pratt said that the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant inspired the idea to hold a contest focused on creating robots that could operate in environments hostile to humans.
The proxy contest focused mainly on how efficiently the two companies could consolidate their operations -- that is, heated debates over the projections of cost-savings and the estimates of revenue losses from eliminating overlapping product lines.
In a Times/CBS News poll last month in Iowa — where Mr. Giuliani appears to be struggling, and where voters are clearly more focused on a contest that is fully engaged — 52percentt said he did not share their values.
The exchanges, carried in the course of a day of television interviews, campaign bus rides, outdoor rallies and forums, came as Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain focused on a contest that Mr. McCain suggested, in a morning interview with Don Imus, he needed to win to stay in the Republican race for president.
