About 20 members of the Ames and ISU community gathered in Catt Hall to watch round two of the political showdown between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

The participants took part in Debatewatch, a session sponsored by the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics. Debatewatch, a national program put on by the National Commission on Presidential Debates, is a program that allows citizens to see the debates without commentary by political analysts.

“We are not here to see who won or lost but what we can learn from the debates,” said Dianne Bystrom, director of the Catt Center.

The participants in the Debatewatch said both sides debated the issues too generally during the debate at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.

“Gore seems to think about what he wants while Bush is more touchy-feely,” said Shauna Hallmark, assistant professor of civil and construction engineering.

Kathy Craig, senior in finance and Spanish, said Gore wants the United States to be more of an international leader, while Bush wants to be more humble on the United States’ world-power status. She said both sides need to understand that the “world is a global village.”

During the last debate, ISU Debatewatchers said agriculture, foreign policy and gun control were major topics left out of the debate and should have been added to Wednesday’s debate. Bystrom said 45 minutes of the debate were devoted to foreign policy.

Peggy Talbert, program assistant at the Catt Center, said the examples of past conflicts the commentator gave, such as in Lebanon and the Persian Gulf, did not help her to better understand the stance of the candidates on foreign policy.

“If people don’t know about the past conflicts, then [talking about] it didn’t help them out,” she said.

Debatewatch participants said they agreed that Bush is more for local government, while Gore is pushing for more federal government intervention. The environment was used as an example since Gore wants mandated programs on how to improve the environment, while Bush wants to give environmental control to the states, said Jessica Carlson, freshman in political science.

“[The candidates] didn’t agree with what their own campaigns were doing,” said Terry Stark, candidate for Story County Sheriff. “They were clearly uncomfortable.”

Stark said the last question made both of the candidates look like they didn’t have control over what was going on in their own campaigns.

The next presidential debate will be 8 p.m. Tuesday at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.