LEHRER: All right, moving on now to divisions in our country, the first question goes to Governor Clinton for 2 minutes, and Ann will ask it.

COMPTON: Governor Clinton, can you tell us what your definition of the word "family" is?

CLINTON: A family involves at least one parent, whether natural or adoptive or foster, and children. A good family is a place where love and discipline and good values are transmuted (sic) from the elders to the children, a place where people turn for refuge, and where they know they're the most important people in the world. America has a lot of families that are in trouble today. There's been a lot of talk about family values in this campaign. I know a lot about that. I was born to a widowed mother who gave me family values, and grandparents. I've seen the family values of my people in Arkansas. I've seen the family values of all these people in America who are out there killing themselves working harder for less in a country that's had the worst economic years in 50 years and the first decline in industrial production ever.

I think the president owes it to family values to show that he values America's families, whether they're people on welfare you're trying to move from welfare to work, the working poor whom I think deserve a tax break to lift them above poverty if they've got a child in the house and working 40 hours a week, working families who deserve a fair tax system and the opportunity for constant retraining; they deserve a strong economy. And I think they deserve a family and medical leave act. Seventy two other nations have been able to do it. Mr. Bush vetoed it twice because he says we can't do something sevenety two other countries do, even though there was a small business exemption.

So with all the talk about family values, I know about family values -- I wouldn't be here without them. The best expression of my family values is that tonight's my 17th wedding anniversary, and I'd like to close my question by just wishing my wife a happy anniversary, and thank you, my daughter, for being there. (Applause)

LEHRER: President Bush, one minute.

BUSH: Well, I would say that one meeting that made a profound impression on me was when the mayors of the big cities, including the mayor of Los Angeles, a Democrat, came to see me, and they unanimously said the decline in urban America stems from the decline in the American family. So I do think we need to strengthen family. When Barbara holds an AIDS baby, she's showing a certain compassion for family; when she reads to children, the same thing.

I believe that discipline and respect for the law -- all of these things should be taught to children, not in our schools, but families have to do that. I'm appalled at the highest outrageous numbers of divorces -- it happens in families, it's happened in ours. But it's gotten too much. And I just think that we ought to do everything we can to respect the American family. It can be a single-parent family. Those mothers need help. And one way to do it is to get these deadbeat fathers to pay their obligations to these mothers -- that will help strengthen the American family. And there's a whole bunch of other things that I can't click off in this short period of time.

LEHRER: All right, Mr. Perot, you have one minute.

PEROT: If I had to solve all the problems that face this country and I could be granted one wish as we started down the trail to rebuild the job base, the schools and so on and so forth, I would say a strong family unit in every home, where every child is loved, nurtured, and encouraged. A little child before they're 18 months learns to think well of himself or herself or poorly. They develop a positive or negative self- image. At a very early age they learn how to learn. If we have children who are not surrounded with love and affection -- you see, I look at my grandchildren and wonder if they'll ever learn to walk because they're always in someone's arms. And I think, my gosh, wouldn't it be wonderful if every child had that love and support. But they don't.

We will not be a great country unless we have a strong family unit in every home. And I think you can use the White House as a bully pulpit to stress the importance of these little children, particularly in their young and formative years, to mold these little precious pieces of clay so that they, too, can live rich full lives when they're grown.

(Applause)

LEHRER: New question, two-minute answer, goes to President Bush. Sandy will ask it.

VANOCUR: Mr. President, there's been a lot of talk about Harry Truman in this campaign, so much so that I think tomorrow I'll wake up and see him named as the next commissioner of baseball.

(Laughter)

The thing that Mr. Truman didn't have to deal with is drugs. Americans are increasingly alarmed about drug-related crimes in cities and suburbs. And your administration is not the first to have grappled with this.

And are you at all of a mind that maybe it ought to go to another level, if not to what's advocated by William F. Buckley, Jr. and Milton Friedman, legalization, somewhere between there and where we are now?

BUSH: No, I don't think that's the right answer. I don't believe legalizing narcotics is the answer. I just don't believe that's the answer. I do believe that there's some fairly good news out there. The use of cocaine, for example, by teenagers is dramatically down. But we've got to keep fighting on this war against drugs. We're doing a little better in interdiction. Many of the countries below that used to say, well, this is the U.S.' problem -- if you'd get the demand down, then we wouldn't have the problem -- are working cooperatively with the DEA and the military. We're using the military more now in terms of interdiction. Our funding for recovery is up, recovering the addicts.

Where we're not making the progress, Sander, is in -- we're making it in teenagers, and thank God, because I thought what Ross said was most appropriate about these families and these children. But where we're not making it is with the confirmed addicts. And I'll tell you one place that's working well, and that is the private sector -- Jim Burke and this task force that he has, you may know about it. I'll tell the American people, but this man said I'll get you a million dollars a day in pro bono advertising, something that's very hard for the government to do. And he went out and he did it. And people are beginning to educate through this program, teaching these kids you shouldn't use drugs.

So we're still in the fight. But I must tell you, I think legalization of narcotics, or something of that nature, in the face of the medical evidence, would be totally counterproductive. And I oppose it, and I'm going to stand up and continue to oppose it.

(Applause)

LEHRER: Mr. Perot, one minute.

PEROT: Anytime you think you want to legalize drugs, go to a neonatal unit -- if you can get in. They're between 100 and 200% capacity up and down the East Coast. And the reason is crack babies being born, babies in the hospital 42 days. Typical cost to you and me is $125,000. Again and again and again, the mother disappears in 3 days, and the child becomes a ward of the state because he's permanently and genetically damaged.

Just look at those little children, and if anybody can even think about legalizing drugs, they've lost me.

Now, let's look at priorities. You know, we went on the Libyan raid -- do you remember that one? -- because we were worried to death that Gaddafi might be building up chemical weapons. We've got chemical warfare being conducted against our children on the streets in this country all day every day, and we don't have the will to stamp it out.

Now, again, if I get up there, if you send me, we're going to have some blunt talks about this, and we're really going to get down in the trenches and say, is this one you want to talk about or fix, because talk won't do it, folks. There are guys that couldn't get a job third shift in a Dairy Queen driving BMWs and Mercedes selling drugs. And these old boys are not going to quit easy.

(Applause)

LEHRER: Governor Clinton, one minute.

CLINTON: Like Mr. Perot, I have held crack babies in my arms. But I know more about this, I think, than anybody else up here because I have a brother who's a recovering drug addict. I'm very proud of him.

But I can tell you this. If drugs were legal, I don't think he'd be alive today. I am adamantly opposed to legalizing drugs. He is alive today because of the criminal justice system.

That's a mistake. What should we do? First, we ought to prevent more of this on the street. Thirty years ago, there were three policemen for every crime. Now there are three crimes for every policeman. We need a hundred thousand more police on the street. I have a plan for that.

Secondly, we ought to have treatment on demand.

Thirdly, we ought to have boot camps for first-time nonviolent offenders so they can get discipline and treatment and education and get reconnected to the community before they're severed and sent to prison, where they can learn how to be first class criminals.

There is a crime bill that, lamentably, was blocked from passage once again, mostly by Republicans in the U.S. Senate, which would have addressed some of these problems. That crime bill is going to be one of my highest priorities next January if I become president.

(Applause)

LEHRER: Next question is to you, Mr. Perot. You have two minutes to answer it and John will ask it.

MASHEK: Mr. Perot, racial division continues to tear apart our great cities, the last episode being this spring in Los Angeles. Why is this still happening in America, and what would you do to end it?

PEROT: This is a relevant question here tonight. The first thing I'd do is, during political campaigns, I would urge everybody to stop trying to split this country into fragments and appeal to the differences between us and then wonder why the melting pot is all broken to pieces after November the 3rd.

(Applause)

We are all in this together. We ought to love one another because united teams win and divided teams lose. And if we can't love one another, we ought to get along with one another. And if you can't get there, just recognize we're all stuck with one another because nobody's going anywhere, right?

(Laughter)

Now, that ought to get everybody back up to let's get along together and make it work. Our diversity is a strength. We've turned it into a weakness.

Now again, the White House is a bully pulpit. I think whoever is in the White House should just make it absolutely unconscionable and inexcusable, and if anybody's in the middle of a speech at, you know, one of these conventions, I would expect the candidate to go out and lift him off the stage if he starts preaching hate -- because we don't have time for it.

See, our differences are our strengths. We have got to pull together. In athletics, we know it. See, divided teams lose; united teams win.

We have got to unite and pull together, and there's nothing we can't do. But if we sit around blowing all this energy out the window on racial strife and hatred, we are stuck with a sure loser because we have been a melting pot. We're becoming more and more of a melting pot. Let's make it a strength, not a weakness.

(Applause)

LEHRER: Governor Clinton, one minute.

CLINTON: I grew up in the segregated South, thankfully raised by a grandfather with almost no formal education but with a heart of gold who taught me early that all people were equal in the eyes of God.

I saw the winds of hatred divide people and keep the people of my state poorer than they would have been, spiritually and economically. And I've done everything I could in my public life to overcome racial divisions.

We don't have a person to waste in this country. We are being murdered economically because we have too many drop-outs, we have too many low birthweight babies, we have too many drug addicts as kids, we have too much violence, we are too divided by race, by income, by region. And I have devoted a major portion of this campaign to going across this country and looking for opportunities to go to white groups and African American groups and Latino groups and Asian American groups and say the same thing.

If the American people cannot be brought together, we can't turn this country around. If we can come together, nothing can stop us.

(Applause)

LEHRER: Mr. President, one minute.

BUSH: Well, I think Governor Clinton is committed. I do think it's fair to note -- he can rebut it -- but Arkansas is one of the few states that doesn't have any civil rights legislation.

I've tried to use the White House as a bully pulpit, speaking out against discrimination. We passed two very forward-looking civil rights bills. It's not going to be all done by legislation. But I do think that you need to make an appeal every time you can to eliminate racial divisions and discrimination, and I'll keep on doing that and pointing to some legislative accomplishment to back it up.

I have to take ten seconds here at the end -- the red light isn't on yet -- to say to Ross Perot, please don't say to the DEA agents on the street that we don't have the will to fight drugs. Please. I have watched these people -- the same for our local law enforcement people. We're backing up at every way we possibly can. But maybe you meant that some in the country don't have the will to fight it, but those that are out there on the front line, as you know -- you've been a strong backer of law enforcement -- really -- I just want to clear that up --have the will to fight it, and, frankly, some of them are giving their lives.

LEHRER: Time, Mr. President. All right. Let's go now to another subject, the subject of health. The first question for 2 minutes is to President Bush, and John will ask it.

MASHEK: Mr. President, yesterday tens of thousands of people paraded past the White House to demonstrate their concern about the disease AIDS. A celebrated member of your commission, Magic Johnson, quit saying that there was too much inaction.

Where is this widespread feeling coming from that your administration is not doing enough about AIDS?

BUSH: Coming from the political process. We have increased funding for AIDS. We've doubled it on research and on every other aspect of it. My request for this year was $4.9 billion for AIDS -- ten times as much per AIDS victim as per cancer victim.

I think that we're showing the proper compassion and concern. So I can't tell you where it's coming from, but I am very much concerned about AIDS and I believe that we've got the best researchers in the world out there at NIH working the problem. We're funding them -- wish there was more money -- but we're funding them far more than any time in the past, and we're going to keep on doing that.

I don't know. I was a little disappointed in Magic because he came to me and I said, "Now if you see something we're not doing, get ahold of me. Call me, let me know." He went to one meeting, and then we heard that he was stepping down. So he's replaced by Mary Fisher who electrified the Republican Convention by talking about the compassion and the concern that we feel. It was a beautiful moment and I think she'll do a first-class job on that commission.

So I think the appeal is yes, we care. And the other thing is part of AIDS -- it's one of the few diseases where behavior matters. And I once called on somebody, "Well, change your behavior. Is the behavior you're using prone to cause AIDS? Change the behavior." Next thing I know, one of these ACT UP groups is out saying, "Bush ought to change his behavior."

You can't talk about it rationally. The extremes are hurting the AIDS cause. To go into a Catholic mass in a beautiful cathedral in New York under the cause of helping in AIDS and start throwing condoms around in the mass, I'm sorry, I think it sets back the cause.

We cannot move to the extreme. We've got to care. We've got to continue everything we can at the federal and the local level. Barbara I think is doing a superb job in destroying the myth about AIDS. And all of us are in this fight together, all of us care. Do not go to the extreme.

(Applause)

LEHRER: One minute, Mr. Perot.

PEROT: First, I think Mary Fisher was a great choice. We're lucky to have her heading the commission. Secondly, I think one thing that if I were sent to do the job, I would sit down with FDA, look at exactly where we are. Then I would really focus on let's get these things out. If you're going to die, you don't have to go through this ten-year cycle that FDA goes through on new drugs.

Believe me, people with AIDS are more than willing to take that risk. And we could be moving out to the human population a whole lot faster than we are on some of these new drugs. So I would think we can expedite the problem there.

Let me go back a minute to racial divisiveness. The all- time low in our country was the Judge Thomas-Anita Hill hearings, and those senators ought to be hanging their heads in shame for what they did there.

(Applause)

2nd thing, there are not many times in your life when you get to talk to a whole country. But let me just say to all of America: if you hate people, I don't want your vote. That's how strongly I feel about it.

(Applause)

LEHRER: Governor Clinton, one minute.

CLINTON: Over 150,000 Americans have died of AIDS. Well over a million and a quarter Americans are HIV-positive. We need to put one person in charge of the battle against AIDS to cut across all the agencies that deal with it. We need to accelerate the drug approval process. We need to fully fund the act named for that wonderful boy Ryan White to make sure we're doing everything we can on research and treatment.

And the president should lead a national effort to change behavior, to keep our children alive in the schools, responsible behavior to keep people alive. This is a matter of life and death. I have worked in my state to reduce teen pregnancy and illness among children. I know it's tough.

The reason Magic Johnson resigned from the AIDS Commission is because the statement you heard tonight from Mr. Bush is the longest and best statement he's made about it in public.

I am proud of what we did at the Democratic Convention, putting 2 HIV-positive people on the platform, and I am proud of the leadership that I'm going to bring to this country in dealing with the AIDS crisis.