Bush-Gore Debates May Be Decisive

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 25, 2000 | by Jamie Dettmer

The opinion polls are stabilizing now in the wake of the Democratic and GOP conventions, the bounces having encountered the laws of entropy, and all signs are that Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush will enter the last lap of this White House race deadlocked in terms of the popular vote. The contest could swing on the forthcoming presidential debates.

Judging by the confident noises coming from the vice president's advisers, they believe their man has a distinct edge over Bush when it comes to the cut-and-thrust of verbal jousting. With the Electoral College map still favoring the Texas governor, they are looking to Gore for a clean kill in at least one of the three planned encounters between the two.

The vice president's debate record is indeed good: He flattened Ross Perot in a televised face-off about the North American Free Trade Agreement and he made mincemeat of an ill-prepared Jack Kemp in 1996. On paper neither of those opponents appeared to be pushovers but both left the stage with their reputations in tatters.

Gore also acquitted himself tolerably against incumbent veep Dan Quayle in 1992 -- not something to boast about some may argue. In fact, Quayle was selected by Bush senior in 1988 partly on the basis of the sharp debating skills he displayed in his senatorial campaigns. There is therefore a history that inspires Gore's aides. Combine the vice president's track record with the trait Bush apparently inherited from his father of fumbling pronunciation and murdering syntax, and the smart money has to be on Gore corning out of the debates very well.

But pride goeth before a fall. Bush has been here before: facing a formidable debater in the endgame of a deadlocked election campaign. Back in 1994 in his successful first gubernatorial race, he confronted the then-incumbent Texas governor Ann Richards, arguably a better debater than Gore and one possessed with razor-sharp wit to zing opponents with withering one-liners. It was Richards who delighted the 1984 Democratic National Convention with her derisive "poor George" speech in which she ridiculed Bush senior as having been "born with a silver foot in his mouth."

There was much anticipation in the Lone Star State about a face-off between Richards and the Son of Silver Foot. The smart money was on Richards, especially as Bush's aides seemed reluctant to field their man in verbal combat, something we are seeing again in this presidential race. More than 80 debate invitations were received by the candidates from state media outlets and other Texas organizations, but the Bush camp rejected all but one. A wave of mocking attacks ensued from the Richards camp. The state media went to work on Bush, too, asking, "What gives?" and pointing out that normally it is the challenger who wants to debate and the incumbent who seeks to defer.

The pre-debate atmosphere in the state was ghoulish. As far as the pundits were concerned, Bush was on death row and Richards was executioner-in-waiting. How would she finish him -- the rope, a blast of electricity, a hypodermic needle?

And Richards played hardball from the opening minutes of the hour-long debate in Dallas, pouring scorn on Bush's business acumen and highlighting his lack of political experience. She went full bore on a charge she previously had repeated on the campaign trail: that Bush had been on the boards of oil businesses which had lost $371 million. "There are serious questions to be raised whether or not George Bush is qualified to be governor," she sniffed.

The Richards tactic was designed to do two things: force Bush onto the defensive about his business record and shake him up early. Richards hoped that Bush would lose his cool and demonstrate some of the temper he can display when challenged. He did flub a few words but weathered the initial Richards assault, earning sympathy from the audience when he pointed out that the incumbent governor was using "smear tactics." While she touted her record in office and lashed at Bush, he remained disciplined, sounding his campaign talking points of spending more on public education, being tougher on juvenile crime and restricting welfare.

And he held his own. As Texas columnist Molly Ivins has acknowledged in her less-than-flattering book -- Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush -- he "wasn't brilliant or impressive, but he was on-message and made no mistakes."

With the low expectations voters had of his debating skills, merely avoiding gaffes and remaining affable was enough for Bush to go on to win the election, surfing a general statewide wave of feeling that it was time for a change. The Bush-Richards debate, now being reviewed by both campaign staffs, holds some possible lessons for the presidential candidates. Gore needs to guard against overconfidence and in the pre-debate spin the veep's camp needs to lower expectations for their man and heighten expectations for Bush -- vice versa, of course, for the Bush camp.

In the debates Gore needs to restrain his attack-dog instincts -- Richards found that Bush's pleasantness confounded her aggression. And Bush? He needs to study hard and actually read the briefing books -- the greatest danger for him lies in Gore showing up his lack of policy knowledge. But again there are dangers for Gore in appearing too much the policy wonk -- in the famous Kennedy-Nixon debates, Nixon won on the issues and was favored for that reason by the radio audience. Yet the television audience was won over by Kennedy charm -- and it was the affability of the Democrat that convinced voters he was the man for them.