IF YESTERDAY afternoon's first face-to-face debate-like encounter between Lynn Swann and Ed Rendell had been held, say, last February, we might have a governor's race.

As is, with six weeks to go, more interest in the Senate, Rendell carrying a four- or five-to-one advantage in campaign cash and a huge lead in independent polls, let's just say the fat lady's humming.

And it didn't hurt that the "debate" moderator, CBS News' Lesley Stahl, isn't from Pennsylvania and admittedly didn't know the numbers behind the issues, at one point saying "my head hurts" let's move on.

Then he goes right at Eddie, noting increased taxes and a bad business climate, a state budget up 28 percent ("twice the rate of inflation") and a Forbes magazine ranking of states friendly to business that puts Pennsylvania 41st in the nation.

Then he bangs Swann's tax-cut plan, saying it'll cost maybe $6.6 billion "in new revenue we don't have," asking (oddly), "Where in the Lord's name are we going to pay for it?"

Rendell counters with, "Doctors are not leaving." He says the number of docs annually paying into the state's catastrophic insurance fund - about 35,000 - remains the same.

On the pay raise, Swann notes that Ed had supported it, called it "good legislation," but earlier yesterday (at a Pennsylvania Press Club lunch) had admitted he made a mistake in signing it.

Rendell, clearly nicked, calls Swann "a hypocrite" on the issue because Swann supported reelecting Republican leaders who engineered the raise. This strikes me as both harsh and thin.

Swann scores with a line playing off a Rendell '02 campaign promise to cut property taxes 30 percent. In his closing statement, he looks into the camera and says that if anyone got such a cut, "I've got two Super Bowl rings I'm going to give you."

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