But experts acknowledged that Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush and Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore both performed better during last week's debate at Wake Forest University than in the opponents' first meeting Oct. 3 at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.
The Wake Forest debate took on a less formal setting than the Boston debate, with the two candidates sitting around a table instead of standing behind a podium.
In the third debate, which will take on a forum-type setting, the two candidates should cut down on long, expository speeches, said University of Kansas communication studies Professor Diana Carlin - a consultant to the Commission on Presidential Debates.
"My advice is that citizens want a direct answer," Carlin said. "They should not go off on their own speeches."
She said the roundtable format used in last week's debate favored Bush.
"I think they both did better, but the format was certainly more comfortable for Bush," Carlin said. "They were even on foreign policy, but Bush seemed to be much more prepared than the last time."
UNC political science Professor George Rabinowitz said that although Bush performed better at the second debate, he still has still not established himself as a suitable candidate in the eyes of many Americans. "Bush still needs to prove to the public that he would be an adequate president," he said.
For the last presidential debate, Carlin said that both Gore and Bush need to expand on various issues including education, abortion and crime.
Rabinowitz also said that Gore needs to capitalize on the economic boom of the late 1990s. "Gore needs to say a good deal more about how the economy was in the past eight years," he said.
