Voters who want a real contrast between two candidates for high office have no better place to turn than to the U.S. Senate race here in New Hampshire. At a New Hampshire Institute of Politics forum with Sen. John Sununu and challenger Jeanne Shaheen yesterday, those differences were on vivid display. They started with the enormous gulf between each candidate's willingness to answer questions directly.

As is his habit, Sen. Sununu actually answered the questions that were asked him. As is her habit, Jeanne Shaheen did not. Shaheen's dodging got so bad that at one point the host, New Hampshire Public Radio's Laura Knoy, had to ask Shaheen to respond to the question she had been asked but was busy not answering.

No matter the question, Shaheen almost always responded by attempting to link John Sununu to President Bush. This seemed to upset Sununu, which we suppose was partly the point. But unlike a television ad, which sinks sound bites into people's brains without the opponent having a chance to rebut them live, the forum presented Sununu with response time. He used it to great effect by repeatedly listing many instances in which he took positions that opposed those of the Bush administration or the Republican Party.

While Sununu answered questions in great detail -- sometimes so much detail that he used up his time and had to be cut off -- Shaheen glided from rehearsed talking point to rehearsed talking point. When she was pressed for details, it wasn't pretty.

For example, in criticizing Sununu for supporting the federal bailout last week, she said she would not have supported the bill because it included $150 billion in additions she characterized as awful. Sununu pointed out that the extras were a tax cut package that had already passed the Senate 94-2 and an expansion of FDIC insurance on bank deposits. Minutes later, when asked what specific items in that $150 billion she opposed, Shaheen said she largely agreed with the whole package she had just attacked.

Asked if she supported nuclear power, she said nuclear was part of our energy mix, and we have to have safer storage of the waste. What's missing from that answer? An answer!

On topic after topic, Shaheen repeated her rehearsed spin, attacked President Bush and generally refused as many direct answers as she could. She could have been putting on a clinic on how to dodge questions.

What's worse, this is not an aberration. She has conducted her entire campaign this way. Jeanne Shaheen is offering so little substance in this race that if substance were food and candidates had to live on what they offered in their campaigns, she'd starve.

Sununu, on the other hand, would get fat.