After weeks of research, strategy sessions and mock debates, the two candidates stood before the nation Tuesday night, beamed to tens of millions of television screens. And in living rooms like the Doyles’ in Schaumburg, it was time to try to sort through the vagaries of prescription drugs, foreign oil and tax policies to get a handle on whether to cast a vote for Vice President Al Gore or Gov. George W. Bush.
With no obvious rhetorical flubs or factual errors, and policies that rarely strayed far from the center, it wasn’t easy.
“I wish I could merge some of their policies together,” said Jack Doyle, a manager at Northrup-Grumman Corp. in Rolling Meadows, who voted Republican in the last two presidential elections but this year is undecided. “They both have some good ideas.”
Watching the spectacle with his wife, Debbie, and their children, the night brought a few laughs. They liked how Bush, perturbed at numbers Gore was slinging about, zinged the vice president about inventing the calculator. But on substantive issues, they found themselves siding with Bush one moment and Gore the next.
Gore’s support for abortion rights drew a clap from Debbie. But his harping on Bush’s tax plan came across “like fingernails on a chalkboard,” she said.
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And Doyle said the debate elevated her opinion Bush. “I was surprised,” she explained. “Bush is definitely not as polished a politician as Gore, and I like that. He seemed like he came across like a more human, more middle-class-type person.”
In another household, in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood, Bush’s pledge to go to Washington and end partisan bickering while devising a strong plan to help senior citizens gain access to health care and affordable medicine drew a doubtful response from James Smith, 50, a computer data recovery specialist.
“Democrats and Republicans haven’t worked together for the last 20 years,” said Smith, at the home of his son-in-law, Charles Childs. “What makes him think they’re going to start now?”
Childs, who runs a South Side funeral home, said he went into the debate undecided and would likely end up picking between “the lesser of two evils.” But he came away expressing more admiration for Gore’s performance than Bush’s. Concerned about Social Security, he said he like Gore’s pledge to put funding for the program in a “lockbox.” At the same time, Childs said he liked Bush’s appeal to let Social Security funds grow in the stock market.
Overall, he came away more impressed with Gore and expressed distaste for Bush’s attempt to sully’s Gore’s character by linking him to President Clinton’s sex scandal.
In Oak Lawn, Carole Kemmerling, 50, found the debate more befuddling than enlightening. She found the debate’s format confusing because she felt the candidates were prevented from speaking in much depth about their proposals before lurching to another topic.
But the debate struck a chord with her mother-in-law, 80-year-old Joan Kemmerling. Before the debate she was leaning toward Bush. After, she found herself leaning toward Gore.
“He seems to be more sympathetic to the problems of senior citizens,” she said. “It just seems he would do more for the seniors.”