JIM LEHRER: Now two other official views of last night's debate, first a Republican assessment from Deborah Steelman, the Bush campaign's Domestic Policy Adviser. Ms. Steelman, thank you for being with us. Is the Vice President worse off, better off, or about the same as a result of last night?

DEBORAH STEELMAN, Bush Adviser: Well, we think clearly better off. Last night was an excellent chance to frame the issues and we did it very well. We showed the difference between the center and left, George Bush in the center. Clearly, all our polling today shows as well as a variety of things we've looked at around the country, that undecided voters were swayed by last night's debate. It worked for us.

JIM LEHRER: But most of the polls, did they not, show pretty much a dead heat with a little bit of an edge overall to Dukakis?

MS. STEELMAN: Well, it depends on what question you were asking. The interesting thing for us was that, yes, some people did give Dukakis the edge, very slight margins, something like 42/39, this sort of thing, but the more interesting fact is that even among those voters who thought he may have won last night, they're still more likely to vote for George Bush. They liked his presentation; they liked his answers. We think this election is all about the message and they got an excellent chance to see, yes, maybe a cool cucumber debating, but a guy who's sending them a message they don't agree with.

JIM LEHRER: How do you believe Dukakis came over then?

MS. STEELMAN: Well, we've got a variety of responses.

JIM LEHRER: But how do you feel?

MS. STEELMAN: Well, clearly, it was programmed response from word one. He avoided many questions. He had his answers and he gave them. George Bush was far more natural. He viewed this as an opportunity not for 12 free TV commercials, as Dukakis clearly did, but as a chance to look into the American people, talk directly to the American people, and explain himself and why he wants to be that man as President. He did that very well and we think we swayed an awful lot of undecided voters last night.

JIM LEHRER: Swayed them with what? What do you think the message of George Bush was last night that you believe swayed the voters?

MS. STEELMAN: As I said earlier, it was the message between the difference in the center and the left.

JIM LEHRER: Do you think he successfully painted Dukakis as a liberal?

MS. STEELMAN: Oh, no, the beauty of last night was that he didn't have to paint at all. Dukakis clearly painted himself as a liberal. His responses were right down the liberal line, every one of them. That was the thing that most of us inside the Bush campaign found most remarkable is that he didn't even try to move to the center. George Bush, on the other hand, I think has shown himself as a very moderate candidate, a very conservative candidate at the same time, conservative on the issues where the American people believe the Reagan Administration has been successful, interest rates, inflation, economy, and moving forward on other issues where the American people clearly believe we need to have some answers like child care and others. And we think it was a very good debate because we didn't paint anything. There was no image making. Dukakis is a liberal and it showed. Bush is very much in the mainstream of American values and American opinion. And that showed.

JIM LEHRER: There was a PS today from your campaign chairman James Baker on the abortion issue. Last night the Vice President said he was unsure as to whether or not a woman who received an illegal abortion should be considered a criminal. Today Mr. Baker said they shouldn't be, is that right?

MS. STEELMAN: No. What George Bush said last night is he was unsure as to what penalties were appropriate. Mr. Dukakis said, you think women are criminals. That has clearly never been Mr. Bush's position and never will be. Women who face this choice have a very deep personal struggle that Mr. Bush respects deeply. Clearly, abortionists may face some penalties, but women need counseling and need to ensure that these tragedies don't occur in the future.

JIM LEHRER: So the position that Mr. Baker announced today is that the people, the women who receive the abortions should not be subject to penalties?

MS. STEELMAN: Not to criminal penalties, no. They clearly need counseling. They need additional follow through services. Clearly, Mr. Bush believes that adoption is the way to go in this issue, that these women have a gift they can give, and we think that's a far more humane and progressive way to lead the public discussion on that very very tough issue.

JIM LEHRER: Going into the debate, many people said on this program and elsewhere, everywhere elsewhere, that one of the key things was what was said about the debate afterward and the ripple effect of that. You all must have been monitoring that since last night. How do you read that? Do you have any problems on what's being said? And are you trying to control them?

MS. STEELMAN: We, obviously folks like me, are on shows like this and we're talking about it.

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

MS. STEELMAN: But I don't think any of this talk will fool the American people. They saw a choice last night. All of our initial results as to that choice show that more undecided voters are going for Bush regardless of who won the debate or who didn't. The interesting thing about last night's debate, contrary to the lead- in, was this was going to be pre-packaged, no issues discussion. That didn't happen, very much issues discussion and very big differences between these two candidates.

JIM LEHRER: There was also a lot of talk going in about the fear, it was said, within the Bush campaign that the Vice President might make a tremendous mistake, a gaff of some kind. How serious a concern was that?

MS. STEELMAN: Well, that's got to be a concern anytime you go up. I'm concerned about that before I come on here.

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

MS. STEELMAN: I'm sure Mr. Dukakis was concerned about that as well. It's such an immediate impression. You don't want to make a mistake but I don't think Mr. Bush was ever concerned about it. He was very confident going into it.

JIM LEHRER: And from your point of view, from the campaign's point of view, he came out ungaffed, right?

MS. STEELMAN: Not only ungaffed, but quite on top with the yellow light and other events where he showed he was in command of himself clearly.

JIM LEHRER: Is there anything that, for instance, like the patriotism, what the stories have said, that Dukakis's finest moment was when he said, "I resent," the Vice President's questioning his patriotism -- as a result of that and the way that was dealt with last night, do you anticipate that the Vice President will handle that issue a little differently, the Pledge of Allegiance, the card carrying ACLU thing?

MS. STEELMAN: Well, actually as we look at that question in our polling, it was not that big of a score. Mr. Bush gave his view that he is not questioning Mr. Dukakis's patriotism, he's questioning his judgment. He gave a very clear articulation of that and Mr. Dukakis, because he can't win on that issue, tried to say, "I resent that," and get emotional about it. The American people are just smarter than that.

JIM LEHRER: So no changes?

MS. STEELMAN: No, no.

JIM LEHRER: Anything come out of the debate that you think will change, anything that the Vice President does in the next couple of weeks?

MS. STEELMAN: I don't think so. We've always known this was a long-term haul. We've been doing this since January of 1987. We've got six more weeks. The message, the one thing that came out of last night was the message is what counts. We've been on very specific issues from the beginning and we came out with very specific drug abuse, child care, ethics, environment, you'll see several more packages from us. The issues are still there, will be for the next six weeks, and we feel that we are, that Mr. Bush is clearly in the mainstream of American value, they clearly aren't. That was exemplified last night and will continue to be exemplified every day of the campaign.

JIM LEHRER: Deborah Steelman, thank you very much.

MS. STEELMAN: Thank you.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: With the Dukakis view of last night's debate, joining us from the studios of WGBH in Boston is Jack Corrigan, the Director of Campaign Operations for the Dukakis Campaign. Mr. Corrigan, how do you think your candidate came out last night?

JACK CORRIGAN, Dukakis Adviser: Well, we feel great, Charlayne. We feel that the debate last night did a couple of things. First of all, it's pretty clear from any of the polling that's been done that the voters feel that Gov. Dukakis won the debate, but more importantly the debate moved off the opportunities at flag factories and on to the real issues that affect people's lives. We were able to debate last night effectively on housing, on health care, on the environment, on drugs. Those are issues that touch people's lives and they're far more meaningful we think ultimately to the outcome of this election than these photo opportunities, so that's a real opportunity.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what do you say to Ms. Steelman who just said that even if she were willing to concede that Mr. Dukakis had the debate in the edge last night that the voters, especially the undecideds, are still more likely to go to Mr. Bush?

MR. CORRIGAN: Well, I don't think she has any basis for that statement. The only poll that's been done was done last night, was the ABC/Washington Post poll. Nobody polls during the day, it doesn't tell you anything, because the voters go to work during the day. Perhaps Mr. Bush's voters don't go to work during the day, but our voters certainly do so it's not going to be reflected until the evening poll. But the point is more important. I did think that one thing Deborah Steelman said was very interesting which is that George Bush is a moderate and a conservative at the same time, depending on what the voters want to hear. I don't think that's the way you can run a campaign. I think that the candidates need to tell people what they believe and what they believe in their heart and not just what some pollster tells them to say.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: She said that the message is what counts and that the message that came out loud and clear from Mr. Dukakis last night was that he wasn't trying to move to the center and that he was a bona fide liberal. Was that message he was trying to send out or what?

MR. CORRIGAN: No. They think, the Bush campaign thinks that that one word tells you everything you need to know like the one word conservative tells you everything you need to know. I think the candidates have got to tell people specifically where they stand and where they've always stood. On the issue of abortion last night, George Bush did a complete 360 from where he was eight years ago. And then he didn't know what he thought about criminal penalties. Mike Dukakis charged him with cutting Social Security, planning to cut Social Security just like he did in 1985, when he cast the tie breaking vote to eliminate the COLA increase. Those issues haven't been responded to. Those are far more meaningful to people than a simple label like a liberal.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Do you think your candidates swayed voters last night to his side last night with the positions that he took?

MR. CORRIGAN: I think that he had very specific things to say to people on health care for the 37 million Americans who don't have health coverage. George Bush had absolutely nothing to say. For people who want to go to college and wan their children to go to college, Mike Dukakis has proposed very specific plans to help them go to college. George Bush has nothing to say on that except a thousand points of light. None of understand what that means. So I think in terms of the specific issues, in terms of a specific vision for how to take this country forward and deal with the specific problems that real people face all the time, I think we're going to move voters.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Do you think this whole issue of the liberal thing and the Pledge of Allegiance and the card carrying member of the ACLU, I mean, what do you think he was able to do with those charges last night? Do you think they've been put to rest?

MR. CORRIGAN: I think the Governor clearly put the patriotism charge to rest and I don't think you'll hear that from Mr. Bush again. As far as the ACLU goes, this is another one of those meaningless labels they throw up. The Governor believes in free speech, but the ACLU in this state has opposed him on dozens of issues, on road blocks to stop drunk driving, on his gay foster care policy, on his presumptive sentencing bill. The Governor fought for longer sentences for criminals here, for presumptive sentencing, so you'd know exactly what sentence you would receive if you committed a crime.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Right.

MR. CORRIGAN: The ACLU is opposed among those things. So it doesn't sum up a whole career to say that someone is a member of the ACLU, it doesn't mean anything.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Do you feel that the debate last night changed the momentum of this campaign in any way?

MR. CORRIGAN: I think clearly. I think that this campaign since the conventions has been far too much one liners and photo opportunities and too much name calling. Last night very specific issues were discussed, Social Security, housing, health care, education, jobs. People are going to live under the next President for four years or eight years. Day to day those things are going to affect their lives. That's far more meaningful than the name calling exercise so our cause is advanced when those issues are debated.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: What about in the area of defense where Mr. Dukakis was perceived most vulnerable, how do you think he handled that area?

MR. CORRIGAN: Well, I thought he handled it great because he was very specific, he was in command of the facts. George Bush naming three weapons he would eliminate, named three weapons that have already been eliminated, one in 1985, three years ago. So I think the experience question is not going to be much of a question for the next few weeks.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Is this debate going to change your campaign strategy? I mean, how are you going to be able to take all that you've just said was a plus for Mr. Dukakis, and change it into a plus for the campaign, or is that part of the strategy?

MR. CORRIGAN: Well, the strategy started last night. The strategy is to talk specifically about Gov. Dukakis's vision of where he wants to take this country and how he wants to help real people with their lives, with the issues that touch their lives. The second part of the strategy and I should mention this, is to compare and contrast Mike Dukakis's judgment with George Bush's judgment, so when we talk about trading arms to the Ayatollah, doing business with Noriega, picking Dan Quayle and putting him a heartbeat away from the Presidency or toasting Ferdinand Marcos, that is raising a question of judgment, of basic judgment.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: With the election some six weeks away, how hard is it going to be able to sustain the momentum from last night's debate as a campaign tactic?

MR. CORRIGAN: I can't tell that yet, but we're going to do our best.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: How are you going to do that?

MR. CORRIGAN: Well, Mike Dukakis went to Cleveland today and spoke and he's in New Jersey right now and he'll be in Peoria, Illinois, tomorrow where we'll find out how this is playing in Peoria.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Have you decided to do anything differently for the next debate, or have you given it any thought yet?

MR. CORRIGAN: I haven't given it any thought yet but I think that if it goes the way last night went, we'd be happy to debate again and we'd be happy to debate a third time.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: In the same manner?

MR. CORRIGAN: Sure or Lincoln/Douglas.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: There's nothing you would change?

MR. CORRIGAN: Maybe make it longer.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But in terms of the format or in terms of the way your candidate --

MR. CORRIGAN: Well, the format has been agreed to. We would certainly be amenable to a more open format, more direct questioning, a longer debate. We'd be open to a third debate or a fourth debate.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But that's not --

MR. CORRIGAN: I think that what you're seeing out of the Bush campaign is a lot of bravado. I mean, they've declared victory on the debate, but they're still ducking opportunities for further debate.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Corrigan, thank you very much for being with us.