JIM LEHRER: Now to some less official views. As we've said, instant polling done last night by ABC, Newsweek and other news organizations showed people mostly split down the middle on which candidate did the best last night. Elizabeth Brackett did her form of polling for us. She watched the debate with a group of Chicago area voters she first talked to for a pre-debate report last Friday. Here is his follow-up.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The television set was the focal point of Kathy and Rich Brooks' suburban Chicago living room last night. The seven voters we asked to watch the debate gathered around the set, ready for the first faceoff between the two candidates.

GOV. DUKAKIS: Values begin at the top, in the White House. Those are the values I want to bring to the Presidency.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Illinois, particularly suburban Chicago, is a critical battleground for the campaigns. In a close race four years ago, Ronald Reagan won with the help of Reagan Democrats, many of them suburbanites. Kathy Brooks was raised a Democrat, but she voted for Reagan four years ago, as did her husband, Rich. Lawyer Tom Allen Stuck with the Democrats. He and his wife, Jan, lean to Dukakis this time. William McKinney is looking for a job. He is also looking at Dukakis. His wife, Debbie, thinks their economic situation might be better with Dukakis. Retired mailman Harry Keefe usually votes Republican, but says he's undecided. No one in the group was firmly committed to either candidate as they began to watch the debate, but previous perceptions of the candidate and his party did seem to influence the message that was heard. On the question of dealing with the homeless, Harry heard Dukakis say.

HARRY KEEFE: It seemed to me that Dukakis was favoring a welfare state in order to finance all these homes and everything else. Everybody could have a new home and have two cars in the garage and all this old song and dance that we've heard for years when you go way back, but paying for it is another thing.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Now did anybody else hear that?

WILLIAM McKINNEY: No. I think Dukakis said the money had to come from everybody, from Governors, from real estate companies, from the government, itself, everybody had to pitch in to build affordable housing for people who couldn't afford 'em normally.

RICHARD BROOKS: I hear more of what Harry was saying in that it sounded great, but then how do you actually do it?

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: On the deficit --

KATHY BROOKS: The blame for it goes so many places that I don't know exactly where it came from.

WILLIAM McKINNEY: Actually he was saying the Republicans made the deficit.

KATHY BROOKS: I understand he said that, but you know --

WILLIAM McKINNEY: How did they make it? No one came --

HARRY KEEFE: The people that have got the purse strings, the Congress, are Democrats and if they're spending the money, you can't blame the guy that's on top.

TOM ALLEN: But you know that point Dukakis made he should have hammered it a little better. I mean, you caught it, I caught it, but it's something that's beneficial to his campaign and he should have hammered it in greater, more simplistic terms too.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: So he hit it so lightly that Rich hear didn't even hear it.

TOM ALLEN: He didn't want to hear it.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: So those who thought Dukakis was a liberal felt Bush scored points with jabs like this one.

VICE PRESIDENT BUSH: The liberals do not like me talking about liberal. They don't like it when I say that he says he's a card carrying member. And I hope that people don't think that I'm questioning his patriotism.

GOV. DUKAKIS: Of course, the Vice President is questioning my patriotism. I don't think there's any question about that. And I resent it.

TOM ALLEN: Dukakis' response was an orchestrated, preplanned zinger he was going to get in.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Did it work?

TOM ALLEN: But he didn't expect Bush to precede the zinger with the confession of hey, don't worry, I'm not worried about your patriotism. Did it work? No. I think it was awkward.

WILLIAM McKINNEY: They was mainly just pickin' at each other, just pickin', tryin' -- it seemed like they wanted to make the other guy made enough to expose something that he shouldn't, let the people see the other side of him.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Who won the battle of the one liners would you say?

KATHY BROOKS: I think they both lost. I think there were a lot of cheap shots thrown back and forth. I think they started off in that tone very early on and it gave me a very frustrated feeling as to how the debate was going.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Which man appeared more Presidential to you?

TOM ALLEN: What does that mean, since you like to coin those phrases?

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Which man would you be more comfortable with leading the country after watching the debate tonight?

KATHY BROOKS: One thing that Dukakis did that really made me feel uncomfortable was that he appealed to a lot of emotional type issues. I think he brought up this young girl who wanted to be under a drug program and you know he brought up various things like that which I just don't think it gives any credibility to him to tug at the heart strings of America. I don't think it's an appropriate way to conduct yourself in a debate. And I guess in that case I lost some respect for him.

DEBBIE McKINNEY: I was leaning towards Dukakis before I came in and maybe I just wanted to hear what he was saying but what he was saying were on sensitive issues and I learned more about how he felt about those sensitive issues that those issues are important to me, health care and homeless, and he explained what he wanted to do about them where I didn't hear what Bush wanted to do about them and so that makes me think well, just continue what they're doing.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Here's the final question. Tell me who you think won and why.

RICHARD BROOKS: George Bush won the debate. He was, again, he was even tempered. He seemed more human even though Dukakis was going for the emotional points, George Bush seemed more human and I risk saying less rehearsed, but I think he was answering the questions as he felt they should be answered. Dukakis was answering the questions like he had rehearsed them to be answered.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Kathy.

KATHY BROOKS: I have to agree with that. I think Bush won in my book because it makes me surer that I'm going to vote for him. I felt frustrated by Dukakis because he did bring up emotional points and I think he hit Bush really hard in some inappropriate ways.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Jan.

JAN ALLEN: Okay. I guess at this stage I would feel this debate was a draw. I don't see either candidate shining or pulling ahead. Neither one of them did that extraordinary of a job that I would say one would have won and one lost. So they're equal.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Tom.

TOM ALLEN: If you measure it in terms of these historically, when you go into these debates, you don't want to make a mistake, you know, you just want to play it level, and as trivial and minor as Bush's mistake was, he did what he was probably trying to avoid, screwing up, and so if you're going to measure it in those terms, I'd say he lost, and history has shown that whoever makes the biggest guffaw like Gerald Ford in '76 or whatever year -- and in that sense I think he lost.

WILLIAM McKINNEY: I was going to say that it was more or less a draw. I don't think neither of the candidates got really what they needed out of this debate. I think they drawed more even than they stepped ahead of each other. Because of the cheap shots and stuff, people are not going to pay too much attention to the debate.

DEBBIE McKINNEY: I'm not a very good judge on debates. This is the first one I've really sat down and seriously looked at. I liked what I heard from Dukakis. I felt that he explained himself better, so if you're going to measure it on that, I think Dukakis won.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Harry.

HARRY KEEFE: As far as the debate is concerned, I don't think either one of them won. I think it was a tie.

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