Undecided voters quiz Bush, Gore

ST. LOUIS -- The town hall format in Tuesday night's presidential debate not only allowed the candidates to walk around, but gave more room for swinging a few punches.\nIn their last debate before the election, Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush traded figures on topics posed by people who many say will ultimately decide the election: undecided voters.\nBush and Gore responded to each other's claims to questions posed by Missouri residents chosen by Gallup. All questions were posed by undecided voters. Their questions were given to moderator Jim Lehrer.\nThey debated specific issues like school vouchers and spending programs, while pinpointing fundamental differences in their stances.\nOn education, Bush's stance that local control should be emphasized rather than federal prompted Gore to question him.\n"States would be required to pay vouchers to students to match the vouchers federal money put up," Gore said. \nHe said students would then be trapped in those schools while states are "forced to match" that money.\nGore said Bush's tax cut would leave little money to spend on areas like education, but in his rebuttal Bush said Gore's spending would increase tremendously.\n"Just add up the numbers and its three times bigger than what President Clinton proposed," Bush said.\nIssues that have been discussed in previous debates came up again, such as military readiness and violence in entertainment. Other issues brought up by the audience included family farms and the candidates proposed actions to help them survive.\nBush said his priority for the military would be to prepare them for war and by doing so prevent war from occurring. He is also against committing troops for peacekeeping missions. Gore's stressed that the U.S. military is the strongest is the world, and said he is for such reforms like modernizing equipment.\nWith many of the same issues being debated and the candidates' general stances on those issues being similar, professor emeritus of political science Thomas Wolf said the decision of who won the debate came down to style and performance.\nHe said he thought Gore clearly won because he corrected behavior like sighing and smirking at Bush's remarks, but Bush now displayed some of those behaviors.\n"I thought he was right on target," he said. "I thought this was Bush's worst performance."\nTo some, Bush prevailed as the winner in this debate because they said he was straightforward with his answers and offered specific proposals. Rep. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said Bush did well enough to reach out to voters in Ohio, a key swing state, and secure those coveted electoral votes.\n"When you're in a town meeting format, the most important thing is that you have to be able to relate to people and connect well with people," he said. "I was surprised that Vice President Gore took it as an opportunity to be negative and critical. I think what Gov. Bush did was connect with people and lay out his theme"