Real-Time Debate Responses

When Al Gore waxed passionate on the issue of health care, real-time response among independent voters sent his ratings upward.

The same was true for George W. Bush, when he said the federal government couldn't be responsible on its own for reforming education.

"We have got to get health coverage for those who do not have it," said Gore, as his ratings soared.

"To the extent we spend federal money on disadvantaged children, we want the schools to show us the children are learning. What's so unreasonable about that?" said Bush, to similar approval.

The dial meter focus group debate project is meant to be a nationally representative sample of debate watchers - letting journalists and political observers know what the viewers liked or didn't like even as the candidates spoke.

In many ways, it's like a focus group - equipped with a high-tech method for measuring positives and negatives. Instead of 20 people in one room, it's as many as 400 registered voters - a national sample of viewers - watching in their own homes. On their screens, outfitted with WebTV, they will see a bar at the bottom of the screen, labeled with a plus sign at one end and as minus sign at the other. By pushing arrows on their remote control, viewers selected to participate in the project can move the bar.

Their responses were aggregated into groups of Democrats, Republicans and independents, and appear as moving lines on the screen.