"There's been some talk about Buddhist temples in this campaign," Gore said in an interview from his training facility in the Dagobah system. "I suggest that Bill Bradley learn more about Buddhism real quick, because on March 6, he's going to need to know how to transcend pain."

"My only regret is that the duel is on a Monday," Bradley said during his daily press conference. "I usually like to take out the garbage on Thursdays."

Besides providing a public forum for devastating verbal repartee, the battle is also an opportunity for the two former senators to showcase their longtime advocacy of the Pentagon's Imagineer America program, a $45.9 billion defense conversion initiative to engineer weapons that originally appeared in much-loved science-fiction movies. The program has led to the creation of such weapons as the interspace Photon Torpedo and a full-size replica of the Battlestar Galactica, in addition to the lightsaber prototype that the candidates will use in the duel.

The "Bright Ideas" lightsaber, a joint venture between General Electric and MCI, is a colorful energy blade that also contains "all-in-one" wireless voice and pager capacity. Bradley, who studied Jedi magic as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, has pushed for consumer protection legislation mandating that the blades be deactivated for the telecommunications functions to work.

"We cannot afford to have an America where the leaders of tomorrow risk cutting off their ears just because they need to take a call," Bradley said.

While the fight is not to the death and victory will be declared when one man disarms the other, the risks of engaging in life-threatening combat on the eve of Super Tuesday has raised some eyebrows among pundits.

"The lightsaber thing really could backfire, even for the victor," said political analyst Kevin Phillips on CBS Sunday Morning. "If Gore beheads Bradley, for instance, or even just chops of his hand, it could really turn off the suburban swing voters who like to think of him as a sensitive Dad type."

Republican reaction to the announcement was mixed. Bush spokesman Pat Robertson called the event "idolatrous," while Senator John McCain expressed interest in participating in future duels. Were he to engage in hand-to-hand combat with an opponent, McCain said, he would not need a lightsaber, and would instead focus on "head butting anything that moves."