RALEIGH — The presidential debates are over. The campaign may seem almost over, but as the year 2000 showed, the last few days can feature significant shifts in political fortunes. That being said, however, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I think President Bush will leave Wednesday’s exchange with John Kerry with a reinvigorated political base and a recovery of momentum.

I think that President Bush clearly outperformed Sen. Kerry in the debate. I was apparently a bit out of step with others on the first debate, which I thought a draw. The second debate brought an improved Bush but not a commanding Bush. Not much more than a draw. But this debate was different. I think the president accomplished three important goals:

First, he talked effectively to his base, mobilizing them for turning out the vote and giving them confidence. To limited-government types, he several times argued that the federal government shouldn’t get bigger and run our lives for us, that freedom was a fundamental value and a worthy goal for our efforts foreign and domestic, and that markets were better than top-down control. He actually made the case for market-based health care reform — using wonky terms such as “third-party payment, for example — more effectively than I have ever seen he or any other president or presidential candidate do it. And of course, he nailed Kerry repeatedly on taxes, which for conservatives is a symbolic issue about the size of government, not just an issue of numbers and brackets.

Meanwhile, to social conservatives, Bush affirmed the culture of life. He talked credibly about his faith (Kerry sounded fake on the subject). Bush affirmed traditional marriage while upholding the freedom of everyone to live their lives as they like, and with whom — a position that sounds more like Dick Cheney’s take on the issue than I expected. Oddly, stem-cell research was barely mentioned. Wasn’t that why Alex Keaton was there at the Tempe debate?

Second, he put Kerry on the defensive most of the night. Kerry didn’t even try to deny the “liberal senator from Massachusetts” label. Bad idea. The debate felt as though it was on Bush’s terms and territory, despite the fact that Kerry was supposed to be on his home field (domestic affairs) in the third debate.

Third, Bush showed that he knew who, at this late date, remains undecided. That’s why he talked so much about education. The truly undecided are disproportionately female, many with children. In addition to education, Bush’s tax talk was designed to appeal to them as a pocketbook issue (for them it isn’t symbolic, as it is for conservatives). I don’t know who Kerry thinks is undecided at this point, but it is unlikely to be people who will be swayed by yet more naysaying on Iraq. He did mention the fictional “pay gap” between men and women, but little else was directed at the group likely to break late, it seems to me.

The president was better prepared, sunnier, and more persuasive tonight. A bounce will likely follow.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.