I would find Flávio Bolsonaro's economic reassurance easier to accept if it required slightly more of him.

According to AP's account of Sunday's Brazilian presidential debate, Bolsonaro said the economy would improve simply by removing Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and fighting corruption. The first part is admirably clear. Elect Bolsonaro. The second part sounds useful too. I begin to lose the thread only when I try to work out which part is the economic programme and which part is the instruction for making Bolsonaro president.

Suppose we accept the reassurance on its own terms. Removing Lula produces improvement. How much improvement? Through what decisions? At what point does the new president have to contribute something beyond continuing not to be Lula? It is an unusually accommodating performance standard. Every morning in office, he could meet it before breakfast.

This matters because Brazil is choosing a government for 214 million people in the October 25 runoff. Bolsonaro led the first round, 47 percent to 45 percent, and recent polling described by AP suggests a close race. A close election ought to increase the incentive to explain the offer. Apparently it can also increase the incentive to explain, at considerable volume, the person standing beside you.

AP says the two-hour debate contained insults, accusations and sometimes inaudible exchanges, with little discussion of future plans. Lula defended his record and welfare initiatives. That is more concrete than an economy improving upon his departure, but it doesn't excuse a debate that leaves undecided voters doing the work of separating a governing proposition from a family argument.

The anti-corruption reassurance also deserves to be followed one step further. On Sunday, federal police asked the Supreme Court to open an investigation into Bolsonaro over a money-laundering accusation. AP reports another investigation concerning his links to a former banker who financed a film about his father. Bolsonaro denies wrongdoing in both matters. A request for an investigation is not a conviction; neither is an investigation already underway. Keep those distinctions intact.

But a candidate offering anti-corruption as the mechanism for prosperity can reasonably be asked how scrutiny will operate when it reaches him. Does the proposed principle remain equally attractive? Lula challenged both men to open their finances to scrutiny before the vote. The useful next sentence would concern what gets disclosed. It need not contain an insult.

I want the reassurance to work. Less corruption and a better economy are things worth wanting. I just cannot get there by accepting that one candidate's removal supplies the policy, while questions about his replacement are an irritating interruption of it.

They have another debate on Friday. Perhaps someone can ask what happens on the second day of the Bolsonaro economic miracle, once the demanding first-day task of being a different man has been successfully completed.