Mr. Schumer's crime speech, which his aides billed as a major address, wove together two of his principal campaign pitches: that he has a proven record of legislation and a wealth of new ideas.

He came to Riverside with what his aides billed in advance as a "major policy address" - a fierce attack, customized for California's voters, on illegal immigration and affirmative action programs.

The senator's aides billed his remarks, in a speech and question-and-answer session here, as the start of a bid to portray his ticket's platform as a coherent vision rather than merely a string of disconnected proposals.

"I'm going to ask you something hard, and I hope it's not going to upset you," Miss Gordimer said, turning what mayoral aides had billed as strictly a "photo opportunity" into an exchange of ideas.

Mayoral aides have billed the trip as an effort to foster cultural and economic ties between New York and whatever post-apartheid regime emerges in South Africa, and to lend support to the black majority there.

Indeed, Mr. Kerry's aides had billed his appearance as a step just shy of entering the lion's den: he had been heckled before the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and his aides described the Legion as a more conservative group.

His aides had billed the speech as a significant policy address, but he raised many questions without providing firm answers to them.

One senior aide billed the address, which Mr. Clinton worked on in the last two weeks of his vacation, as a "back to work, back to school, America's back" speech.

Mr. Bush's aides billed the event as a policy discussion on breast cancer, an issue that has been of particular concern on Long Island, where activists have suggested that environmental contaminants have caused high rates of the disease.

And so on Tuesday Mr. Bush went to Kalamazoo to give what his aides billed as a "major address" in which he stopped saying that the country was on the skids and instead took a sunny view.