The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Friday, Vice President Bush was declared the consensus winner of last night's debate, Gov. Dukakis conceded he had a tough campaign ahead, and President Reagan threatened to call a special Congressional session if necessary to help the Nicaraguan Contras. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York tonight. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After the News Summary, we'll see how the debate looks in the cool light of the day after. Well see it through the eyes of voters in New Hampshire, Editors Ed Baumeister of the Trenton Times, Lee Cullum of the Dallas Times Herald, and Gerald Warren of the San Diego Union, and Newshour analysts David Gergen and Mark Shields. Then the taxpayer's bill of rights, what it is, and what it means for taxpayers. Finally, Roger Rosenblatt looks back at a world series game 32 years ago for the meaning of perfection. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The instant polls and the pundits gave last night's Presidential debate to Vice President Bush. Gov. Dukakis acknowledged today a tough campaign road lay ahead. But he and running mate, Lloyd Bentsen, were upbeat when they appeared together this afternoon at a rally in Sacramento, California.

GOV. MICHAEL DUKAKIS, Dem. Presidential Candidate: After last night, the Republicans have been up to the plate three times. I don't have to tell the people of the state that is going to be the home of the next world champions -- and I say that as a long suffering Red Sox fan -- I don't have to tell you what three strikes mean, you're out.

SEN. LLOYD BENTSEN, Dem. Vice-Presidential Candidate: He had a tough job, a tough job debating George Bush. And the reason he had a tough job is because debating George Bush is just like trying to eat jello with a fork. It keeps slipping off, sliding off, and when you finally get a bite, there's not much substance to it. All you've got, all you have is some sugared water and some artificial ingredients.

MR. LEHRER: Vice President Bush also campaigned in California, where he exuded confidence over last night and over the election, itself.

VICE PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH, GOP Presidential Candidate: Well, I'm glad that that last debate is over. And now we have three weeks to take our case to the American people in rallies like this and in events all over this country. And I mean to run hard, to campaign hard, to stand on the issues, and I mean to win this election on November 8th. The American people had a chance to watch two candidates in action, we were specific on the issues, we came at each other pretty hard, and when the smoke cleared, it was pretty clear where we stood, and I believethat I moved my campaign forward by what happened last night.

MR. LEHRER: We will take a longer look at the debate and the race from here right after this News Summary. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: President Reagan ended his efforts to persuade Congress to restore U.S. military aid to the Contras today, but he said he would not hesitate to call Congress back for a special session if Nicaragua's Sandinista Government attacked the rebels. President Reagan made his statement as Congress prepared to adjourn sometime next week. Last month, Congress approved $27 million in humanitarian aid for the Contras.

MR. LEHRER: Retail sales were down again in September. Today's report from the Commerce Department said the drop was .4 percent from August, which had seen a .1 decrease over July. There were two other economic numbers out today. Wholesale prices rose .4 percent in September, food prices were up 1.2 percent, but a drop in gasoline prices kept the overall figure down. In other economic news, federal regulators today announced another savings & loan bailout. The Federal Home Loan Bank Board pledged $1.3 billion to rescue 11 insolvent S&L's in Texas. The announcement said the Adams Corporation, which operates a cable television station in Bryan, Texas, has agreed to acquire the savings & loans.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In Beirut, three people, including a pregnant woman, were killed, and 33 wounded when a car bomb exploded near a Syrian Army checkpoint. We have a report from Tom Brown of Worldwide Television News.

TOM BROWN: A green Fiat packed with over a hundred pounds of explosives and inflammable liquid blew apart in the middle of the morning rush hour in Muslim, West Beirut. The car had been parked at a petrol station near a Syrian Army checkpoint. Debris was scattered over a wide area as buildings caught fire and 15 cars were gutted. The area was sealed off. Only ambulances racing to take the injured to hospital and fire engines were allowed through. The car bomb is the fifteenth in Lebanon this year. Police estimate that 112 people have been killed and over 200 wounded in the other 14. This bombing was the second in less than a month targeted at Syrian troops. The first explosion at a Syrian checkpoint South of Beirut 16 days ago killed three soldiers. No one has claimed responsibility for the latest bomb, but Christian militiamen have repeatedly vowed to combat the Syrian occupation of Lebanon.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: There was more violence in Israel's occupied areas today. One Palestinian was reported killed, and five wounded. Israeli troops also blew up the homes of five Palestinians and raided 30 West Bank towns. The homes belong to Palestinians suspected of killing an Arab collaborator earlier this month. A wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization today claimed responsibility for the killing of three other alleged collaborators. It also warned that other Palestinians cooperating with Israel would be killed.

MR. LEHRER: A top CIA official today gave another side to the Mikhail Gorbachev reform story. Robert Gates, Deputy Director of the CIA, said in a Washington speech, it is doubtful Gorbachev can rejuvenate the Soviet System. Gates said the dictatorship of the Communist Party remains untouched and untouchable, and he said Soviet intellectuals are actually the only people who really support what Gorbachev is up to. The rest of the Soviet people are either opposed or apathetic. The Reuters News Agency termed Gates' speech an unusually outspoken analysis.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In South Korea, radical students staged two violent demonstrations demanding reunification with the North. Some 300 students in Seoul hurled fire bombs at police near the University campus. The students contend that the government is a military dictatorship supported by the United States. The demanded the resignation of the President and the arrest of the former President. The American Cultural Center in the Southern City of Kwang Ju was the target of the second attack. A car inside the compound was destroyed by fire bombs. No one was injured in the building. The building has been the target of several earlier attacks.

MR. LEHRER: Back in this country, the Senate today passed a $2.6 billion drug bill. The measure includes a death penalty provision for drug dealers who commit murder. It also includes money for drug treatment programs. House and Senate negotiators must now work out a compromise between this bill and a similar one passed by the House last month. And finally a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, indicted Lyndon LaRouche and six of his associates. LaRouche is a right wing political extremist and Presidential candidate. The seven are accused of conspiracy to defraud supporters who loaned more than $30 million to the LaRouche organization.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's our News Summary. Still ahead, voters, editors and pundits on who won the big debate, a taxpayer's bill of rights, and a Rosenblatt Essay on perfection. FOCUS - '88 - WHO WON?

MR. LEHRER: The second and last Bush/Dukakis debate draws most of our attention tonight. The two candidates for President answered questions and rebutted each other for 90 nationally televised minutes last night from Los Angeles. Going in, many pundits said it had the prospect of deciding the election. Coming out today, many pundits said it has, in fact, done so. We examine the analytical premise from several angles tonight, beginning with that of the candidates, themselves. Vice President Bush rendered his judgment on the debate in his first speech of the day to a rally in Surritos, California.

VICE PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH, GOP Presidential Candidate: Well, I'm glad that that last debate is over. And now we have three weeks to take our case to the American people in rallies like this and in events all over this country. And I mean to run hard, to campaign hard, to stand on the issues, and I mean to win this election on November 8th. I'm glad we can wage an upbeat campaign about America. I'd hate to be dragging myself around this country trying to convince the American people that everything is bad. It isn't. A lot of things are good about our country in this recovery, and I want to keep the expansion going until every man and woman that wants a job has a job. I have been spelling out the profound differences between us, between me and my opponent, because I feel that the American people have a right to know, and those differences get to the core values, values like family, faith, and freedom, love and country, the security of the United States, and most of all, hope for a future for this country. We had a chance last night to spell it out. I don't think the working men and women in this country are taxed too little. I think Washington spends too much, and I am asking the American people to give the President what 43 Governors have, give the President the line item veto and let him have a chance to control spending. I do believe in a growing America, that we are a moral, good nation that is the light of the world. And there are two men now asking for your vote three and a half weeks from today, but only one of them shares your hopes, the values of the people that are here today in Surritos, the values of plain, ordinary Americans. Only one who has the experience in dealing with foreign leaders, the commitment to keep America strong, only one is pledged to build a kinder and a gentler nation, an America that remains in Lincoln's words, "the last best hope of man on earth." I am that man and I ask for your support. Thank you all. Thank you and God bless you. Thank you very much.

MR. LEHRER: Gov. Dukakis saw it differently. Here's what he said about the debate. He said it with running mate Lloyd Bentsen at his side on the steps of the California state house in Sacramento.

GOV. MICHAEL DUKAKIS, Dem. Presidential Candidate: Last night we defined what's at stake in this election. George Bush is satisfied. I know we can do better and so do you. George Bush is complacent. We want to move forward. Just think of where we'll be four years from now if we try Mr. Bush's diet of old chestnuts and new baloney and the same old voodoo stew. And think of where we'll be four years from now if the Republicans win this election, a Supreme Court full of Robert Borks -- turning the clock back on civil rights, on the right to privacy, on equal justice and equal opportunity under the law. And think of where we'll be with a war on drugs that's led, if that's the right word, by Dan Quayle. We can do better than that. We've got to do better than that, because there's a whole new world out there and we Americans are ready to take it on. We're not going to ignore toxic waste sites. We're going to clean 'em up. We're not going to drill for oil off the Coast of North Carolina -- and of Northern California, East Coast and West Coast. We're going to create a marine sanctuary from Big Suhr to the Oregon border -- because Lloyd Bentsen and I want clean air and clean water and clean coasts and a clean government. And that is exactly what we're going to have beginning on January 20, 1989.

MR. LEHRER: Now to what some voters thought about last night. Elizabeth Brackett assembled a group in Manchester, New Hampshire to watch and react to the debate.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: This is the weekend for fall colors in New Hampshire, they say, a sure sign that winter and the general election are just around the corner, Still, it's hard to believe that it has been eight months since George Bush and Michael Dukakis won critical primary victories here. We went back where it all began to get a sense of how New Hampshire's voters are now reacting to the candidates. Bush does have a solid lead in the polls here, despite the fact that Dukakis is a next door neighbor. In Manchester, Suzanne and Alan Cleveland, a lawyer, both lean toward George Bush. On the other hand, retired social worker Alice Krasner calls herself a liberal and likes Dukakis. Farmer Paul Knox is afraid Dukakis is not in tune with the problems on the family farm and leans toward Bush. Mailman Steve Vaillancourt doesn't like the negative campaigning by either candidate, but he is a registered Democrat and favors Dukakis. Elias Ashooh, a stockbroker, likes what he hears from Bush. He fears a Dukakis Presidency would mean too many government programs. Emergency room doctor Sandy King had hoped for more issues and less rhetoric from the campaign. He remains undecided. Michelle Foley too is undecided. This mother of two says neither candidate has provided answers to her concerns of day care, education and child care. Last night, the group settled in to watch the debate. Each brought their own expectations for and prior assessments of the candidates.

GOV. DUKAKIS: If the Vice President of the United States thinks that Robert Bork was an outstanding appointment, that is a very good reason for voting for Mike Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen on the 8th of November.

MS. BRACKETT: The feeling was before tonight's debate that since Michael Dukakis was still a little behind in most of the national polls that he really had to score a knockout tonight to get back in the race. Do you think he did that?

ALICE KRASNER, Retired Social Worker: I don't know if it was a knockout but I certainly thought he did very well. I'm very pleased for all the points that he brought up. I thought they were very pertinent and I agree with the issues. I was kind of surprised that he didn't say he would like another debate because I understand he would have liked it. You remember in the beginning when they had their negotiations. So I thought he was very restrained about that.

MS. BRACKETT: Alan.

ALAN CLEVELAND: I think he not only failed to give a knockout. I don't even think he won on points. That was just my perception. I mean, it was pretty clear at the end of the Bentsen/Quayle debate that Bentsen was wiping the floor with Quayle, but I think that on points, I think probably Bush did better.

DR. SANDY KING: He was basically in charge tonight. I had the feeling. Dukakis was very much secondary to Bush. Bush was acting like the host at a party and Dukakis --

ALICE KRASNER: I'm sorry. I didn't get that feeling. I must object.

MS. BRACKETT: Go ahead.

ALICE KRASNER: Well, I just didn't feel -- I felt that they were both more relaxed and there was more kindness between them when it was suggested that perhaps the publicity and everything has been so negative so far, couldn't they make the effort, and they both said that they would like to.

ELIAS ASHOOH: I think George Bush won it just on consistency. The fact is he did not try to change horses in midstream and I think Michael Dukakis was put in a position where he felt he needed a knockout tonight and I think he was going for it before the bell rang, and I don't think he got it.

MARGARET WARNER, Newsweek Magazine: Governor, you won the first debate on intellect and yet, you lost it on heart. Do you think that a President has to be likable to be an effective leader?

GOV. DUKAKIS: I won the Democratic nomination in 51 separate contests. I think I'm a reasonably likable guy.

ELIAS ASHOOH: I think it was a good response, but I just don't think he's a man that's comfortable with being warm.

MS. BRACKETT: Did you feel any more comfortable with him than you did before?

ELIAS ASHOOH: I've never felt comfortable with him. Just the way he came across tonight, he came across as making the effort, but it looked like an uncomfortable position to take.

MS. BRACKETT: Suzanne.

SUZANNE CLEVELAND: I think he's rather a private person. I don't think that being on television is going to break that little wall of privacy that he has within himself.

MS. BRACKETT: Does that bother you?

SUZANNE CLEVELAND: No, not really, because I think a person deserves their private life, whether they're a public figure or not.

MS. BRACKETT: He did say, I don't want necessarily to be liked, I'd like to be liked, but what I want to be is President, and that's a serious endeavor. Did that make sense to anybody?

MICHELE FOLEY: Definitely.

MS. BRACKETT: Michele.

MICHELE FOLEY: Sure, being President is a serious job, obviously, you know, without being concerned about if everybody likes me. It's if I get the job done, I think people will like him. I don't think it matters the other way.

MS. BRACKETT: Did you warm up to him more yourself after that statement?

MICHELE FOLEY: No, no, no. I think, you know, I like his points and everything, but he's not a warm person.

STEVE VAILLANCOURT: I think George Bush came across as very likable again, but I'm not for George Bush, and if the American people are going to vote for somebody because they happen to like him as a person, I think they're going to get exactly what they deserve.

DR. SANDY KING: I'm a Democrat. I'd like to vote for Dukakis, but he really turns me off.

MS. BRACKETT: Why?

DR. SANDY KING: He's so humorless and rigid and inflexible and he's right, completely right. Bush I think is a much easier person, a little more flexible, much stupider, which worries me. But you know, I have to go between the nice guy and the smart one. You know, who do I pick? I don't know.

ALICE KRASNER: Always take the smart one, goodness.

MS. BRACKETT: They did talk a lot about negative campaigning tonight and they both sort of tried to disavow themselves of any negative campaigning. do you think either one was very effective at that?

ELIAS ASHOOH: No. They were both pretty negative. Both campaigns have been pretty bad.

PAUL KNOX: The first real negative things that were high profile items were at the Democratic National Convention.

ALICE KRASNER: That's true.

PAUL KNOX: And that was a muddy devil. And I think they set themselves up for this and I think anything they've gotten at this point they've had coming.

MS. BRACKETT: So when Bush said that tonight, you thought that was effective?

PAUL KNOX: Yes, very much so. They didn't start it. If the Republican Convention had been first, I'm sure they'd have thrown the first mud.

ELIAS ASHOOH: There were two instances tonight where I got a hard edge in George Bush's voice, and it was both times that he mentioned how Dukakis said that a fish rots from the head down, and the second time I could hear his voice echo in the hall, and it was almost like there was little twinge of righteous indignation that he felt.

STEVE VAILLANCOURT: But don't you think his programmers said, go into that debate and show us some righteous self-indignation and use that line about the "rotting fish", don't you think that was all programmed?

ELIAS ASHOOH: I think it's hard to program everything that goes into a 90 minute debate.

MS. BRACKETT: Did you get a better sense of the relative positions of each candidate, be it liberal, conservative, or on the issues? Did they explain themselves any better on the issues?

DR. SANDY KING: It's all on perceptions. There is no focal point of this election that clearly decides one from the other. They're both, you're going on, well, I think Bush is conservative, so I think he'll continue this way; I'm pretty sure Dukakis is liberal, so that means a certain thing. It's all how you perceive what they are. They don't give anything specific. This thousand points of light, or two hundred and forty million points of light, it's all a bunch of baloney and means nothing. So basically you go in and you decide whether you like, you know, Poppy Bush, the nice wealthy Connecticut man who's somewhat conservative, but he's probably not that conservative, or Dukakis, who's a nice Greek immigrant with a lot of money too, who's probably kind of liberal, but not that liberal, and which, basically which one could you tolerate listening to on the television for the next four years.

MR. LEHRER: From New Hampshire, we go to three of the so-called battleground states, New Jersey, Texas, and California. We do it with the same three newspaper editors who were with us two weeks ago, Ed Baumeister, Managing Editor of the Trenton, New Jersey Times; Lee Cullum, Editor of the Editorial Page of the Dallas Times Herald, she's at public state KERA in Dallas; and Gerald Warren, Editor of the San Diego Union, who's at public station KPBS in San Diego. Lee Cullum, to you first. Do you agree with the consensus that Bush won the debate?

LEE CULLUM, Dallas Times Herald: Oh, yes, Jim. I don't think there's any question that bush won the debate. And as far as Texas is concerned, he was comfortably ahead by 10 points before last night's encounter with Michael Dukakis. His performance last night could only enhance that lead.

MR. LEHRER: Gerald Warren, how did it look from San Diego?

GERALD WARREN, San Diego Union: It looked the same way. I think everybody agrees that Bush is way ahead nationwide. He's probably not very far ahead in California, but the pollsters I talked to today believe he is moving up in California.

MR. LEHRER: Ed, in Trenton.

ED BAUMEISTER, Trenton Times: I think that's probably true, Jim, that Mr. Bush did win, but in talking to people today, I got a sense that they're beginning to feel malnourished by this whole process, that while they're making up their minds based on, you know, warmth or just sort of intangible things like this, that at the end of this debate part of the process, they really don't have enough to go on.

MR. LEHRER: To go on to make a choice between the two men?

MR. BAUMEISTER: They don't feel firm -- this admittedly small sample I took on the phone and down the street today, they don't think that this process, the debate process, coupled with the sort of drop-in process, you know, they come here and there, Mr. Bush was in Trenton this week, they don't think that that's giving them enough to make up their minds based on the issues, the hard issues, that concern them.

MR. LEHRER: Lee, do the people in Texas want more information on these two men?

MS. CULLUM: Oh, Jim, I don't hear any call for more information. I think they are satisfied with George Bush. They're worried about Mike Dukakis. His negative ratings are astoundingly high, as high as 50 percent. I think Texans feel fairly comfortable with George Bush. He's a native of this state, after all.

MR. LEHRER: What are the negatives? Spell out the negatives, as seen in Texas, that Dukakis has to deal with?

MS. CULLUM: Well, I think that one that hasn't been talked about very much but is beginning to surface in the ads is his stand on defense spending. You know, Texas doesn't like to think about it, but this state is heavily dependent on defense spending. One ad that Chuck Yeager is doing says the state will lose 300,000 jobs if Dukakis is elected. That can enforce a negative impression that certainly flows from his being characterized as a liberal.

MR. LEHRER: Jerry Warren, well, you say that you agree, that everybody agrees that Bush won last night. Tell me why you think he won. What was it that he did that was either superior to Dukakis, or that Dukakis did not do that was inferior to Bush?

GERALD WARREN, San Diego Union: Well, taking the last question first, Jim, Dukakis is unable to inspire America. He is unable to set out a position and talk about that position proudly and warmly and with some heat, and say, this is where America should go and have America follow him. I think George Bush last night staked out his positions once again, pointed out the clear differences between himself and Gov. Dukakis, and took a lot of Americans with him.

MR. LEHRER: Where do you come down on the question that Ed raised, that he felt at least his small sample in New Jersey today, that there's still some question about these two guys, not so in California?

MR. WARREN: I don't think there's -- I know it's not so in San Diego, and I would assume it's not so in California, and I doubt that it's so in the nation. These two pollsters I talked to are both nationally known, who happen to live and work in San Diego or California, both said barring any cataclysmic events it's all over.

MR. LEHRER: All over in New Jersey, Ed?

MR. BAUMEISTER: It may be. A fresh poll hasn't been taken, but I stopped by on the way here to look at another poll that was taken overnight. There was movement among the people who watched the debate.

MR. LEHRER: Which way?

MR. BAUMEISTER: For Bush. Among people who hadn't watched the debate, there was not much movement.

MR. LEHRER: What do you make out of this ABC/Washington Post poll that got so much attention on our program and elsewhere the last 24 hours -- just to refresh, the electoral vote 10,000, they polled 10,000 people in all 50 states, and it gave a huge electoral margin to Bush, which essentially said the election is over -- how did you react to that story?

MR. BAUMEISTER: Well, it's just another piece of the evidence that so much of the coverage is focused on polls and reactions and so forth and the effect it has -- people I talked to mentioned that, that you know, it doesn't matter what we think, if we're for Dukakis, because it's all over in the electoral college. This kind of reporting has a real effect on the campaign I think.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, Lee?

MS. CULLUM: Oh, yes, of course, it does. You know, Texans like winners and they don't like losers. If it's the Dallas Cowboys or the Texas Rangers, or a political candidate, they want to be with the winner, it certainly has an effect.

MR. LEHRER: Do you think Vice President Bush was right last night when at one point he turned it around and criticized the press for not covering some of the issues the way that the two candidates have been talking about it, and also covering the polls too much? Do you agree, Lee, with Bush?

MS. CULLUM: Yes, I think that's very possible. I think it's true.

MR. LEHRER: True, Gerry?

MR. WARREN: Well, I'm a little nervous with that position. It is true that we're still covering campaigns the way we covered them 20 years ago, and what's changed is that the polling science is so much better today than it was 20 years ago. We know now almost instantly where this nation stands, and so naturally, we rely on that. It's important to note and to remember though that polls are only as good as the date and time they were taken.

MR. LEHRER: Does it concern you though, Gerry, as an Editor of a major newspaper, that it is now in the journalistic wind and that means it's in the public wind that George Bush has this election won, three weeks, three and a half weeks before a vote is cast?

MR. WARREN: It's too early to give it to George Bush obviously, but, Jim, it didn't start with the press. It started with the public. These pollsters don't call me and ask me how I feel. They call people out in America and in San Diego, and they tell them how they feel at any given time. The polls are saying George Bush, and we're just reporting that.

MR. LEHRER: Ed, what's the solution to this?

MR. BAUMEISTER: Well, I don't know what the solution is, but I think the candidates could contribute more. I mean, I may have missed it, but I don't think either of them has sat down for a one on one interview with somebody like Bill Moyers or one of the commercial anchors, and it seems to me that in the last -- you know, go back 12 years -- that was a sort of a staple of getting to know these people. The candidates are available only in these extremely limited forums, whether the debate's like last night or the visit on Monday to Trenton. George Bush came, went to the Italian section of the town, praised them for their fight against crime, and left. We had really no opportunity to sit down and talk about some of the nitty gritty that affects us. If they contributed more by being more available, I think there'd be less time to go run after the latest poll.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Let's bring in Gergen and Shields. They are here, as usual, to wrap it all up. They are our regular analysts, David Gergen, Editor at Large of U.S. News & World Report, and Mark Shields, Syndicated Political Columnist for the Washington Post. David, how do you feel about the way this election is being covered, the polls? You've heard what we've just been talking about. What's your comment?

DAVID GERGEN, U.S. News & World Report: Well, in some countries, France is an example, they prohibit polls in the last two weeks in order to stop and then to let the voters make a free choice, uninfluenced by the polling numbers and all the commentary. In the American experience, of course, we've never done that. And frankly, there's a lot of literature that people have looked at, polls to determine whether they have a bandwagon effect or not, if they declare someone has a clear lead. And the history is that polls do not influence the outcome of the election.

MR. LEHRER: What about Lee's point that Texans like winners and the polls are showing Bush is the winner, and it just helps the bandwagon?

MR. GERGEN: Well, we all know that at this time in 1968, many Democrats are talking about this today by the way, that Hubert Humphrey was farther behind than Michael Dukakis was and he almost caught Richard Nixon. Gerald Ford came from 30 points back of Jimmy Carter. Polls were showing him that far back at the time of the Republican Convention. He almost caught Jimmy Carter. There have been comebacks. It's still possible. The reason I think that people find yesterday's event so decisive it was the last obvious opportunity for Michael Dukakis to address a national audience, and to change the dynamics, to have a real jolt in this campaign and put himself back in serious contention. The fact that he did not do that, there was a lost opportunity for him, I think is bringing a lot of this commentary. Can Dukakis still win? Yes, Dukakis can still win. Is it difficult? It's extremely difficult at this point.

MR. LEHRER: What kind of jolt could he come up with, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS, Washington Post: Well, the race is not over. I agree totally with David. I don't think it's over by any means. I don't think there is such a thing as a winner by a bandwagon psychology, even in Texas. At the Alamo if that had been the case, they would have all tossed in with Santa Ana long before they did.

MR. LEHRER: Lee, you're going to get to respond to this in a minute. Take notes, okay?

MR. SHIELDS: The fact of the matter is that even in the big blowout elections, the losing party gets 2 out of 5 votes. And if the other case operated and people knew that George McGovern didn't have a chance, Barry Goldwater didn't have a chance, then we would have had elections end up 5 or 6 to 1. So I don't think that is at work. I think David is right on the Humprhey analogy. What is missing, of course, is the Humphrey dynamic. Last night was the chance when the two of them were on the same stage, the intersection, the time when the nation's attention was riveted, so what does Dukakis do? He's got to do something in an equally dramatic fashion. I mean, it comes down now to buying time, to roadblocking all three networks, four if you can, get Nunn and maybe you and Bentsen doing something that raises what you didn't raise last night. What Dukakis lacked last night, you could see it, it was almost the drifting off of interest and enthusiasm, it was like the crowd leaving the ball game in the eighth inning when you're four runs behind. I mean, they were going to beat the traffic and get out to their cars, and that's what happened. He didn't do it last night.

MR. GERGEN: I agree with that. He was flat last night, and George Bush had a terrific night.

MR. LEHRER: You really thought he was flat?

MR. GERGEN: I thought he was pretty flat. I thought --

MR. LEHRER: Was he flat in his own right, or was he flat because Bush was so unflat or unflatter than he was before?

MR. GERGEN: Well, Bush I think had the finest night he's ever had in political debating. I thought he was strong. He seemed relaxed, in control, and he knew, and he stood his ground. He was a man of conviction last night. He didn't pussy foot around on some of the issues. He said this is what I believe, I'm sorry if you don't like it, but this is where I am. And I thought that was good. And I thought Dukakis seemed to lack fire in the belly, which is so important in his campaign. He didn't look like a man who's hungry for the Presidency, and I think he had to do that last night, and in that sense, I think it was a major lost opportunity. But if I could go on from that, it seems to me, Jim, there's a ripple effect from a debate like this. A major event in a campaign, there are consequences when you lose, as I think Dukakis did last night. One consequence is he's getting buried in press today. He lost the press.

MR. LEHRER: And were doing it again tonight.

MR. GERGEN: And we're doing it again tonight. And you find if you look at the newspapers across the nation today, even in the Boston Globe, they really knocked him. So I think he lost that constituency.

MR. SHIELDS: They feel let down. They were going to be the paper of record. They were going to be the next President's paper.

MR. LEHRER: They were going to be on every street corner on Wall Street.

MR. SHIELDS: Sure. They had a lot of books and contracts --

MR. GERGEN: Mark, you've talked to a lot of Democrats today. My sense of it was the second ripple effect was there are a lot of depressed Democrats today. Was that what you found?

MR. SHIELDS: Sure there were. There really were, and there was a sense of deja vu, oh, my God, here we go again, are we going to get somebody at the top of the ticket that's going to do that badly? Missing last night was a lack of spontaneity. Last Saturday at Bates College in Maine, Michael Dukakis talked movingly about victims of crime and his own personal experience with it, and when his father then an aging physician was attacked and brutally robbed and assaulted in his own medical office, how his own brother had been killed in a hit and run driver, and he spoke movingly about it. Last night in the opening question, Bernie Shaw gave to him a hypothetical about Kitty Dukakis being raped and murdered and he didn't, I mean, his answer was an impersonal abstraction, instead of saying, look, sure, I know vengeance, and I know it boils up in all of us, and we want vengeance, but, you know, this is my feeling about capital punishment.

MR. GERGEN: Do you think that question threw him off last night?

MR. SHIELDS: I think it probably did but the other lack of spontaneity was George Bush. America has not fallen in love with George Bush. I mean, let's get that straight. It really, it really hasn't. I mean, the support is soft. George Bush's close last night was again unspontaneous. George Bush had a closing statement that had been memorized in anticipation that Michael Dukakis was going to come in and kick him in the groin and every place else, and he says, I'm against, I'm for the chair for cop killers, I'm against taxes. That was the opportunity, if George Bush had the spontaneity, for a preamble to his inaugural address.

MR. GERGEN: It's true that they haven't fallen in love, but it's also true that George Bush's favorable ratings have gone from 40 percent a few weeks ago to about 60 percent, whereas, Dukakis's unfavorable ratings have gone from about 20 percent to over 40, and it's hurting him. We just heard from Texas, 50 percent.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Let's go back to Ed, Lee, and Gerry. Beginning with you, Ed, could you conceive of anything that Dukakis could do now to pull this thing out?

MR. BAUMEISTER: Well, I think if the Dukakis that Mark saw were more visible -- I covered his first campaign for Governor in 1974 and part of his administration. He is not entirely the man we see on national television either in the debates or in the little sound bites we get at night, if he could do that, the people I talk to who are negative about him, divide into two camps, first, the people who think he is a capital "L" and dangerous liberal and people who say, yeah, I might vote for him, because I sort of go along with him, but, you know, where is that man's humanity? Is he an automaton? I think if he could do that, he could then perhaps dissuade some of these people who feel that the cap "L" dangerous liberal is a problem, but we haven't seen that, what Mark saw. We just have not seen it.

MR. LEHRER: Lee, what are your feelings about what he might do, not only in Texas, but elsewhere to try to pull this out, or is it just impossible?

MS. CULLUM: Jim, I think that Dukakis suffers from a lack of self-definition. He needs to tell us how he would go about forming a government. We look at Bush and we see that the latest Reagan appointments, Dick Thornburgh at Attorney General, Nicholas Brady at Treasury, Lauro Cavasos of Texas at the Department of Education, and we assume Jim Baker, also of Texas, as Secretary of State, would remain. So there's the makings of the government. I think if Dukakis would do the same, it would help a great deal.

MR. LEHRER: Gerry Warren.

MR. WARREN: I don't think he has time, Jim. I agree with David. He had an opportunity last night to reach a national audience and he failed in that opportunity. And there's something we're forgetting here too. I think the stand on the issues is very important, and I think it's very clear where George Bush stands, I think it's very clear where Gov. Dukakis stands, and I think the American people are making up their minds on the basis of those positions.

MR. LEHRER: And all the humanity in the world wouldn't change that?

MR. WARREN: I don't think he has enough time to reach everybody that he has to reach in this nation.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Well, Jerry, Lee, Ed, David, and Mark, thank you all.

MR. SHIELDS: And Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Thank you very much.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Still to come the taxpayer's bill of rights and Roger Rosenblatt's idea of perfection. FOCUS - TAX BRAKES

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Next tonight the taxpayer's bill of rights. It came up in last night's debate when Gov. Dukakis advocated tougher enforcement of the tax laws, a view criticized by Vice President Bush.

GOV. DUKAKIS: Mr. Bush says we're going to put the IRS on every taxpayer. That's what we're going to do. I'm for the taxpayer bill of rights. And I think it's unconscionable that we should be talking or thinking about imposing new taxes on average Americans when there are billions out there, over a hundred billion dollars in taxes owed that aren't being paid.

VICE PRESIDENT BUSH: I have been all for the taxpayer's bill of rights all along, and this idea of unleashing a whole bunch, an army, a conventional force army of IRS agents into everybody's kitchen -- I mean, he's against most defense matters and now he wants to get an army of IRS auditors going out there. I'm against that. I oppose that.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Despite the candidates' disagreement over enforcement, both do support the basic idea of the taxpayer's bill of rights, as does the Congress. The bill is designed to protect taxpayers from overzealous IRS agents. The tax agency argues the proposed law will make their enforcement job more difficult. It's a debate we join now with the bill's sponsor, Sen. David Pryor, a Democrat of Arkansas, and former IRS Commissioner Donald Alexander, now a Washington lawyer. Sen. Pryor, why do we need a taxpayer's bill of rights?

SEN. DAVID PRYOR, [D] Arkansas: Well, for about four decades now we have seen new powers through court decisions, through legislation, through regulations. We have seen the awesome power of the Internal Revenue Service actually become very much stronger. We have seen these strengths and the awesome power of the Internal Revenue Service to go against an American taxpayer, most of the time a very vulnerable taxpayer or small business person. When the taxpayer's rights have actually diminished in this same period of time, the IRS has increased. The taxpayer's bill of rights is going to step in there and strengthen the hand of the American taxpayer in dealing with the Internal Revenue Service.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But why do they need that if they owe the taxes? I mean, what's wrong with the IRS having awesome power?

SEN. PRYOR: The IRS does have awesome powers, and I think all of us in the Senate and the House want people to pay the taxes that they owe, however, we see an IRS mentality today where we find promotions or demotions, whatever the case may be, based upon the amount of money that the collectors collect. This is wrong. They say, well, this is against the philosophy, and this is against the policy of the Internal Revenue Service, but we know, in fact, that is the case. We also see intimidation. Even at the beginning of the time of the interview, of the audit, we see intimidation, we see in the area of collection, we see it even worse. We see a very short ten day notice. Sometimes the taxpayer has not even been notified that their bank account is going to be seized or that automobile is going to be hauled off, and we're trying to breathe some rights into the American taxpayer in dealing with the Internal Revenue Service, and that's why the taxpayer's bill of rights we think is going to pass the Congress next week.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Alexander, you don't see it that way, you don't see it as being necessary?

DONALD ALEXANDER, Former IRS Commissioner: Not all of it. Some of it is a good idea, and the Senate mentionedone thing that's a good idea, extending the 10 day period of the liens and levies to 30 days is a good idea, and IRS should welcome that. IRS powers really aren't all that awesome to deal with the massive task that IRS has to perform. It has to make our tax system work. It has to make it work properly for the benefit of the many people that pay their taxes fully, so that those who refuse to pay, who won't pay, will be called on to meet their obligations too.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So are you saying, in effect, that there isn't the kind of intimidation that the Senator just laid out?

MR. ALEXANDER: No, I don't think there is. Now some people, of course, are afraid if IRS and many tax protesters are anything but afraid of IRS, and IRS has to deal with hostile taxpayers. Now it's not as bad as it used to be in biblical times, when tax collectors were stoned. And I don't know of any tax collector that's recently been stoned, nor do I know of any like Matthew who turned into a saint, we haven't been able to make that jump lately. But IRS's powers are necessary to make the system work. Some of the taxpayers's bill of rights is a good idea. And it should be passed. Some of the provisions in the bill will seriously impede tax administration.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Like for example --

MR. ALEXANDER: For example, two provisions. One provision says that the taxpayer will have a right to claim counsel fees. Going back to the earliest administrative proceeding in which the taxpayer was called on to pay additional taxes, unless the Internal Revenue Service can prove that its position was substantially justified, that's going to turn every administrative proceeding into two proceedings, one whether the tax is due and how much is due, and the other whether the taxpayer can collect counsel fees and how much. Another one is --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, let's just take that one. Senator.

SEN. PRYOR: Well, the right to obtain attorney's fees and accountant's fees during the time of an audit is something that for a long time has been neglected. Today the Internal Revenue Service has the awesome power to go in and to audit, to interview, to harass a taxpayer with the presumption of guilt running against the taxpayer, and the Internal Revenue Service doesn't care how long they take in auditing or harassing that taxpayer. They don't care how many thousands of dollars that might be building up in the lawyer's office or for the accountant. We think that --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: By the lawyer that the taxpayer has had to hire to represent him?

SEN. PRYOR: Has retained, certainly, and we think that this is one of the most simple forms of justice that we can infuse into that system. We have a system today that is not based on respect. It is based on fear --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Alexander.

SEN. PRYOR: -- a pure fear of the taxpayer.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Alexander.

MR. ALEXANDER: I hope the system isn't based on fear. I hope it's respect for the law and compliance with the law, and to assure compliance with the law, you have to have a satisfactory deterrent, and a satisfactory and responsible and effective group of revenue agents to enforce that law.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what about his point that, you know, somebody who might in the end turn out to have a valid tax return and shouldn't have been persecuted in this way, as he put it, has to hire a lawyer and pay hundreds, thousands perhaps of dollars for defense?

MR. ALEXANDER: If Internal Revenue was recklessly or intentionally wrong, that person clearly should have a claim against Internal Revenue for counsel fees, but if Internal Revenue has a reasonable case, then the Internal Revenue Service has a duty, once an audit is commenced, to continue to determine the correct amount of tax, no more and no less.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Senator, do you see more cases than not where the IRS doesn't have a reasonable case, is that what justifies this inclusion of this provision in the bill?

SEN. PRYOR: Well, we see many times -- and by the way, let me say this. Mr. Alexander is an old time friend of mine. Ironically, we are both razor backs from Arkansas. He is from Pine Bluff and I am from Camden. But Mr. Alexander makes a point and he really speaks I think to what I think the mentality in the Internal Revenue Service is today, one that the taxpayer is presumed to be guilty, two that the taxpayer, that the IRS does not have to consider the time, the trouble, the being away from their business, the amount of fees that are being incurred in order for the taxpayer to defend himself even in case of the Internal Revenue Service being in total error. We see thousands of cases each year of where the Internal Revenue Service has been in error, where they wallow around a poor taxpayer or small business person, and after it's all over, the IRS says, well, that was our mistake, but the poor taxpayer has no recourse at this point to do anything to recover the costs.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: He says thousands of cases, Mr. Alexander.

MR. ALEXANDER: Well, first, I want to express my respect for the Senator, a fellow Arkansasian, who's done much to improve tax administration by his very constructive interest in it, because he has the attention of the people downtown, you can be sure of that, and taxpayer assistance actions and increased, improved messages to taxpayers about their rights are really a product of the Senator's concern.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But he says your other point is a mentality that's typical of what he's fighting against, despite all of your nice words of praise for each other.

MR. ALEXANDER: Well, first as to the thousands of people that are injured improperly by the IRS, the IRS's so called "no change" rate -- that's the rate of audits that turn out to result in no allegation of any increased tax -- is very small. The vast majority of audits wind up in the taxpayer paying some additional tax. Now is it fair for IRS to harass a small taxpayer? Of course, it isn't. I agree completely with the Senator, that IRS should not harass the small taxpayer, harass the taxpayer who's doing his or her best to meet his or her responsibilities. Those aren't the taxpayers that IRS has to deal with to try to enforce this very difficult tax law of ours.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You had a second point a few moments ago that you said you thought was wrong in this bill.

MR. ALEXANDER: I certainly did, and my second point is that the bill of rights in the Senate's version would give taxpayers a right to sue the IRS if a contention were made that the IRS or collection officer were careless. Given the massive number of tax protesters that we have in this country and the difficulties the IRS already has in coping with those people, the IRS is going to be faced with a deluge of lawsuits, many of them without any substantial foundation whatever, which will further impede tax administration.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Sen. Pryor.

SEN. PRYOR: Well, we have in the taxpayer's bill of rights a provision that I think Mr. Alexander might even like. If a taxpayer goes in to try to collect damages, and the court decides that this is a frivolous claim, the taxpayer couldbe fined as much as $10,000. We think that is going to cut off the frivolous claims. We also think that for the first time we're going to make the IRS with this possibility of a damage cause of action against the Internal Revenue Service, we're going to make the IRS more careful before they seize someone's property, before they levy someone's bank account and take it out of the bank. I even had, I might say to Mr. Alexander, I had recently a young man come up to me and says, I just want you to know, I'm for your taxpayer's bill of rights. I said, gosh, where do you work? He says, I work with the Internal Revenue Service, I'm an IRS collection agent. I said, why do you support it? He said, because it's going to make us do a better job.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Alexander, you obviously don't agree with that, but how could it be so bad if both of these guys who are slugging it out for the Presidency are in agreement on this thing, one of the few things there's this rare unanimity?

MR. ALEXANDER: Well, first, I agree with much of what is in Sen. Pryor's taxpayer bill of rights, and I think much of it is constructive and helpful, including the provision he just described. Secondly --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I'm sorry, we're not going to have time for that second part, and we perhaps will continue this another time. Thank you for being with us, both of you.

MR. ALEXANDER: Thank you. ESSAY - PAST PERFECT

MR. LEHRER: We leave you this World Series weekend with some perfect thoughts, those of our regular Essayist Roger Rosenblatt, Editor of U.S. News & World Report.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Nobody's perfect, you tell yourself that. Others have always said the same. Nobody's perfect, nothing is perfect, a phrase to ease the humiliations of mortality to let yourself off the hook, a statement of human limits, modest, thoughtful, true. But then there was that game 32 years ago on October 8, 1956, that World Series game on an ordinary weekday afternoon, with everybody going about his ordinary, nothing's perfect, business, except for that Yankee pitcher, Don Larson, a tall, drink of water, who shut out the Dodgers, the Brooklyn Dodgers. He shut them out that day 2 to nothing, nothing. Larson gave the Dodgers nothing, no hits, no walks, no bases, 27 men up, 27 men down, a perfect game in an imperfect world, which stared at that game full of astonishment and awe, yet perfectly well believed in the perfect it saw. Why is that? Why when one actually sees a display of perfection, is it so easy to believe that the thing actually happened? I mean, nobody's perfect, so why when one witnesses perfection in one of our kind don't we roll on the floor and froth at the mouth? Because deep down we believe in perfection, even in our own. That Don Larson, he pitched a perfect game, out of reach for most of us pitchers, but haven't you experienced a perfect day in terms of weather, or scored a hundred on a math test just once, a perfect hundred? The sweet spot on a tennis racket, when that serve came barreling at you, you creamed it back, leaving your opponent stumbling, stupefied. You remember, that day, perfect. For all our protestations to the contrary, people really do believe that perfection is within their reach. The ancient Persians with their deliberate imperfect carpets would call that an affront to God, and the Moslems left their mosques unfinished so as not to anger the powers on high. Still, but for tempting fate, they knew they could have perfected that rug, that mosque, it was possible. The perfect match in a marriage, possible, the perfect piece ofwork, all possible; even when one fails, or especially when one fails, the sense that the enterprise could have gone just right, just exquisitely right, prevails. Maybe that sense of perfection makes us more human than does the imperfection, our wildest dreams a stronger sign of mortality than all our flubs and boots. Yet say it, nobody's perfect. Better always to say it, to cover one's self, and not appear the perfect fool. In the dark though, play it again, Sam, you know what we want to see, ourselves perfected on an ordinary weekday afternoon on October 8, 1956, bottom of the ninth, Dale Mitchell at the plate, strike 1, strike 2, strike 3. Hey, Yogi, are you really going to leap into my arms? RECAP

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Once again a last look at Friday's main stories, most pollsters and political pundits gave the nod to George Bush in yesterday's debate with rival Michael Dukakis. The Vice President's camp said a victory in November was now in reach. Gov. Dukakis conceded he had a tough campaign ahead and appealed for support from undecided voters, and President Reagan dropped his fight for aid to the Contras, but threatened to call a special session of Congress if they are attacked by the Sandinistas. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Charlayne. Have a nice weekend. We'll see you on Monday night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.