Members of the ISU and Ames community had a chance to view the national presidential debates without media influence Monday night through the program Debatewatch.

Eleven ISU students from two Catt Center leadership groups and about 11 members of the Ames chapter of the Women League of Voters participated in the program, which was sponsored by the National Commission on Presidential Debates.

“Many people don’t want to turn off the TV after the debate,” said Dianne Bystrom, director of the Catt Center and Debatewatch facilitator. “They enjoy [the commentary] too much.”

The purpose of Debatewatch is to watch the debate without media influence and then discuss what the participants learned, Bystrom said.

“It would have helped a lot to have had an opening statement,” said Becky Mason, an undeclared freshman. “They used the first two questions as their opening statements.”

Participants agreed that the format of the debate wasn’t the best it could have been.

“It sounded like a bunch of sound bits,” said Harry Weiss, member of the Ames group.

League member George Bearm said the candidates sounded too prepared.

“It sounded really well-rehearsed by both Gore and Bush,” he said. “It seemed like they had the questions ahead of time . completely rehearsed.”

Medicare, taxes, social security and education were just a few of the issues that the group thought were important, but they said they felt there were too many issues like agriculture and international trade weren’t addressed during the debate.

“Bush came across as a better speaker than I anticipated,” Weiss said. “It seemed like Bush was running against Clinton/Gore than just Gore.”

Terry Stark, candidate for Story County Sheriff, said that when Bush was asked about character, he answered the question he was asked. Stark said Gore avoided answering the question.