COMMENTS OF GROUP ON DEBATE COMPILED

Linda Carder took exacting notes while Dave Starrett sat back with his arms crossed and watched as President Clinton and Republican challenger Bob Dole engaged in their first debate of the 1996 campaign.

Both Carder and Starrett were taking part in a presidential debate watch group at Southeast Missouri State University's Demptster Hall Sunday.

The nine women and 16 men in the randomly-selected SEMO group were just a portion of more than one million individuals who made up the national debate watch group. The opinions of the non-partisan group will be tabulated and sent to the national compiling center as a part of an effort to gauge the sentiment of the nation about the debate's results. Those results will be released Tuesday.

Few if any of the SEMO group voiced a strong opinion about a winner or loser, and fewer said they had changed their mind about who to vote for.

None of the nine SEMO students involved in the debate watch said the debate had changed their vote. Almost all of them said the debaters needed to spend more time on issues and less time rehashing previous comments.

Carder, a librarian at SEMO, said she takes notes to stay focused.

"I tried to jot down differences between Clinton and Dole and their responses," she said, adding that she stayed alert to the candidates' physical reactions. "I was planning on taking this back and discussing it with my husband. He's at home watching the debate, and I like to talk to him about it," she said.

Starrett, a professor at SEMO, said he didn't want to be distracted from the debate by taking notes. So he just sat back and watched instead.

"I wanted to just listen and see what they both had to say and take it in that way," he said, adding that the candidates' physical reactions were just as important as the answers they gave. "They all play a role. I'm not sure I can say which was more prominent. It was all part of it, their manners, their reactions, their verbal responses, it's all part of it."

The debate did little to influence Starrett's opinion.

"It was just a chance to hear them state their positions in front of each other with a chance to react to everything," he said. "They were both fairly well composed and did a fairly good job."

Carder said she was surprised at the candidates' civility during the exchange.

"I thought it would be more vicious than it was," she said. "Clinton for instance, I was expecting more anger from him and I didn't see that."

Jessica Meyer, a SEMO student who is visually impaired, said she learned a lot from the tone of the candidates' voices.

"Tone of voice helps a lot," she said. "I really didn't have an opinion on it. I just watched the debate. I know who I'm going to vote for."

Carder said she feels better now after having a chance to form her own opinion about the candidates.

"I was more favorably impressed with both of them than I thought I would be," she said. "Of course I have my biases and my preferences which I brought here. Overall it was favorable for both candidates.

"Somebody once referred to those two as the evil of two lessers. And I don't feel quite as negative as I did about the whole campaign after seeing the debate."