MS. WOODRUFF: Next, we do turn to reaction to last night's presidential debate, the second in a series of three. It was the first official debate which allowed an audience of voters to pose their own questions directly to the candidates. Immediately after the debate, Correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault talked with our focus group of voters and asked them about the effectiveness of the new format.

DR. WILLIAM EURE, Retired Physician, Republican, Hattiesburg, MS: This format was designed for Bill Clinton. This is what he's been doing since New Hampshire. This is how he pulled it out of the bog --

ANNE GREER, Real Estate Agent, Republican, Columbus, Ohio: Right.

DR. WILLIAM EURE: -- from New Hampshire on. And let's face it, George Bush finds himself in the position he's in right now because of his going back on his tax pledge. I'm real provoked at him about that. But -- and what Bill Clinton says is good. It's too good. He gave absolutely no definitive plan on how he was going to reduce the deficit. He said he would do it, but gave no plan.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But many of you have been saying up to this point that you didn't have specifics, and at the end of this debate, Bill Clinton said, I have spoken specifically and pointedly about a lot of issues. Did you hear more specifics and more to the point --

JAMBEY CLINKSCALES, Computer Technician, Democrat, New York City: I think the questioner in the beginning that said to the candidates, could you talk more to the issues, she was talking about how there had been a lot of negative criticism and mudslinging, and the moderator, Carole Simpson, said, let's ask the voters, are you happy with the way the campaign has been going, and they all said, no. And I think it kind of put all three of the candidates on notice that tonight we don't want all this attack, and attack, and attack, we want to really hear what you have to say, and at the end of it, I thought that this was the first time that each of them really had a chance to lay out some specifics.

JASON CONLEY, College Student, Republican, Wake Forest University: The format really bothered me in the sense that I didn't like the moderator injecting her personality in -- into this. And I also thought that the randomness of the questions tended -- tended to give us a sort of bias, and especially in the saliency of the questions, particularly to Perot, and to -- and to Clinton. Some of those were tailor made, and one or two for Bush. But still I don't want to see the degree of bias in the questions.

GWEN CLINKSCALES, Teacher, Independent, New York City: But I really enjoyed the format. The first night it was so civil that no one was talking about anything. And in this format, one person actually got to ask, well, what is the recession, or what does the deficit, how does it affect you personally? And I don't think in the format the first night that they debated, that kind of question could have been asked.

JASON CONLEY: That's an emotional question. That's not -- not a rational question.

STEPHEN HERRING, Substitute Teacher, Republican, Hattiesburg, MS: That's not an issue. That's not an issue in the campaign -- how it's affected him personally.

JASON CONLEY: -- really affected by the recession. I mean, these -- all of these men, Ross Perot, President Bush, Bill Clinton, have been cloistered, and they're very safe economically. I don't think that determines how they can perform in the Oval Office.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But I think maybe implicit in the question was, how can you hope to come up with something that responds to our needs if you don't understand what we're going through.

JAMBEY CLINKSCALES: I think that's one of the questions that Clinton answered the best of the three. There were some questions that maybe Bush answered the best and that Perot answered the best, but that question on the deficit was the one that he sat there and he got up and he walked over to the woman and he had some specific examples to talk to her about it because of what he has been doing.

MARTHA MacCORMACK, Teacher, Democrat, Denver: I'd like to say that what I liked about the format, even though I can agree with Jason about how it could have been biased because of the format, as I watched it, I felt that they were interviewing for a job. You had three candidates. And I sat there thinking if it was my company -- and it is my company -- it's my country -- that I'm here to hire them. I don't have to like any one of them, but these are the only three people that have applied.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: There was also a lot of conversation tonight, a lot of conversation about the economy and jobs. Did anything resonate to you here in a decisive way?

ALLEN RAMSAY, Graduate Student, Independent, Wake Forest University: I would say I'm still fence sitting. I'm extremely concerned about the deficit. And I felt like Clinton delineated a lot of new programs and he did a very good job explaining them and being very specific, but they also sounded extremely expensive. And I can't stress enough my concern over something like that, and the tax and spend reputation that the Democrats have. Also, he seemed overly sensitive to the audience, and it gave him a fake feeling from me, and that didn't do much to help me believe him.

ROBIN GANZERT, Accountant, Democrat, Winston-Salem, NC: I disagree. I think that just added to his sincerity and his credibility. I feel like he was much more sincere, especially in response to that one woman's question about how has the recession affected you, Bush seemed very fake. On the other hand, by saying he had actually gone to a black church and read the -- the little pamphlet, bulletin about teen-age pregnancies, well, he has to read a church bulletin about teen-age pregnancies, whereas Clinton actually came across very sincere. He's been out talking with the people. He has been affected and seen.

DR. WILLIAM EURE: I don't think -- it's not so much what President Bush said. It was the presentation that -- that Gov. Clinton came forth with, where I simply couldn't see through his plans to see how it would affect this without raising taxes on everybody.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But -- go ahead.

JAMBEY CLINKSCALES: A couple of people have said just now that they don't see how Clinton is going to pay for this, but he specifically said out there -- he listed five things that his educational proposal would do, and then he walked away from it. Somebody in the audience said, well, how are you going to pay for that, and he came back, and he said, specifically in my plan, it talks about how I'm going to pay for this. So I -- I don't hear this -- this tax and spend proposal. First of all, he has plans, so you have to find some way to finance them, but his budget proposal has ways in there to pay for that. So I think that that's a false claim to say that it's the same thing over again about tax and spend.

ROBIN GANZERT: And it also has been approved by nine Nobel Peace Prize winners, you know, his economic plan, as well as 500 economists, which is much more than the Bush plan.

SCOTT MacCORMACK: If you have 11 economists in a room, you're going to have 11 different opinions. The problem - -

JAMBEY CLINKSCALES: Well, how is anybody going to pay for any of these proposals if they don't have some way -- it's just like saying, you can't have any new plans, because if you have any new plans, it's going to raise the deficit.

JASON CONLEY: The problem with government, new government spending is that these new government programs tend to snowball, and you -- you tend to have ingrained bureaucracy as a result, and are much more difficult to remove than they are to -- to not implement in the first place. And if you want to reduce the deficit, you're not going to be able to do that with all these new programs, because they're going to be fixed costs.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. How about the next debate, is that, you do think given what's happened to your own mind during these last three debates, do you think the next debate's going to get you any closer?

JAMBEY CLINKSCALES: Well, Clinton has moved me a little bit tonight with his sincerity, and it seems that Bush had settled on blaming the Congress for not getting his bills enacted, so it seems as though if Clinton can hold his own and if Bush doesn't come up with something really, really dramatic, then I'm still going to be leaning towards Clinton.

DR. WILLIAM EURE: You can say what you will about the format, but I think the format made this a more civil debate.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And the answer to the question -- well, you already are declared --

DR. WILLIAM EURE: I'm already leaning pretty strongly to Bush.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And the next debate for you, do you think you're almost there?

MARTHA MacCORMACK: I'm hoping that Clinton sells himself, and I'm hoping that he can come out, giving me specifics, clarify the tax and spend so that I'm not nervous about it, and not make anyone look bad, but can he really sell himself?

SCOTT MacCORMACK: I will make my mind up after the last debate. I'm close. I'm tired of this too. I'm worn out, and I will decide.

ANNE GREER: Well, in the next debate if Mr. Perot stays as strong as he has been, I will vote for him because what he says is what I feel and what I believe.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Jason.

JASON CONLEY: Well, my mind's already made up. It looks like Bush.

ALLEN RAMSAY: Like they say, I'm not convinced that any of them are great candidates, but you have to pick one.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But by this debate tonight, will you -- did you get any closer?

ALLEN RAMSAY: To a decision? No.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Robin Ganzert.

ROBIN GANZERT: My mind's almost already made up as well. I'm with Jason, except I'm for Clinton.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And Gwen Clinkscales.

GWEN CLINKSCALES: I'd like to put a check next to Clinton, and if he can give us a little more specifics about how to -- how he's going to plan to pay for these programs, I'm -- I think he has my vote.

STEPHEN HERRING: I'm still convinced that Clinton cannot do what he wants to do without raising taxes because of his plan, and -- and I was impressed with Bush admitting that raising taxes was a mistake, and that that was not the way to clear it up. So I'm leaning toward Bush.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Well, we'll see you at the next debate. Thank you.