The Democratic Debates
MOLLISON, ANDREW
Washington'-USA THE DEMOCRATIC DEBATES BY ANDREW MOLLISON Washington Televised pre-primary confrontations among one party's Presidential aspirants, an only-in-America hybrid of the classical...
...The two contests with the largest audiences so far in 1984 were sponsored by the House Democratic Caucus in New Hampshire and the Des Moines Register in Iowa...
...Yet all public forums have their limitations, and demand special talents...
...it's fear of seeming to be a poor sport...
...Lloyd Bitzer, chairman of the Communication Arts Department at the University of Wisconsin, told me he disagrees: "The format provides a livelier show, but it's not obvious that is exactly what one wants...
...One will be moderated by Barbara Walters of ABC on Thursday, February 23, in Manchester, New Hampshire...
...At Dartmouth, he crowned his "slow down" orders to finger-fluttering interrogator Phil Donahue with a firm "Amen...
...It's much better televison, and that makes it much better politics...
...This has allowed viewers to sort out those who confront and correct distortions of their positions from those who merely bristle or let the skewing slide...
...Senator John Glenn of Ohio—who tries each time to insert one telegenic bit of news—rising to his feet to take on Mondale as they exchanged charges of "gobbledegook" and "baloney," and then remaining in a half-crouch...
...Cranston...
...But he moved a previous audience deeply with a tribute to the consistency of McGovern, the peace candidate whose Presidential campaign Hart managed in 1972...
...Senator Gary Hart of Colorado floundering solemnly through "New Era" generalities after Mondale leaned over at a Massachusetts debate and coyly asked for the details of Hart's plan for a different kind of U.S...
...Of course, the unedited debates still reach fewer people than political commercials, network news programs or interview shows...
...I'm talking about what will be...
...The Democratic hopefuls have met in public more than two dozen times, with as few as four and as many as all eight of them joining in the fun...
...Senator Alan Cranston of California denying with pained indignation the allegation that "I'm a one-issue candidate," and jovially explaining, " I'm a two-issue candidate—peace and jobs...
...The looser format pleases audiences and gives candidates a harmless target, the moderator, to take potshots at...
...I want to see some richness of thought from these people...
...Robinson responded: "That's a college professor's vision of what ought to be...
...This year's Democratic front runner, former Vice President Walter MonAndrew Mollison is the chief political writer for the Cox Newspapers...
...Navy...
...Former South Dakota Senator George McGo vern grinning boyishly as an unexpected burst of applause greeted his wry advice that an Iowan afraid of losing his farm either hang on until a Democrat wins in November or "if Reagan wins, I'd sell the farm, and buy a bomb shelter...
...Askew, recovering from the flu at another forum, grumpily replied to a Cranston ploy by observing, "I agree that we shouldn't prey upon each other [instead of Ronald Reagan], Mr...
...Already, several vivid moments that were subsequently emphasized in news clips on the three major networks, as well as in newspaper stories, presumably are helping to mold, or unmold, the decisions of millions of voters...
...It seems clear, though, that they convey more information directly to more undecided voters...
...Debates, by contrast, offer lesser-known candidates access to a front-runner's following, and can cause fluctuations in the polls...
...Too often you're seeing very shallow stuff, perhaps because they feel they have to behave as if they were on thePhil Donahue Show...
...In any case, an interview of a single candidate is most likely to be watched by viewers already sympathetic to him...
...Moreover, being an intrusion on people who are watching something else, they must be kept short and therefore tend to stress symbols rather than a substantive discussion of issues...
...another will be presided over by John Chancellor of NBC on Sunday, March 11, in Atlanta, Georgia...
...From now on, we're going to have this mix 'em up format," predicts Michael Robinson, media analyst at George Washington University...
...If you don't debate, people say there's something wrong with you...
...Because Richard Nixon realized this, in the 1968 campaign Republicans could only see him at length in carefully controlled settings where the audiences were selected by his managers...
...Three million households, perhaps 5 million people, watched the set-to last month in Dartmouth...
...They partly offset the efforts this year of party regulars, through rules changes and endorsement strategies, to drag the Democratic Party back to the status quo ante 1968...
...After all, if they don't, so much for voter education...
...By 1980, Ronald Reagan got into trouble for skipping an Iowa debate, and George Bush got into deeper trouble for trying to keep the lesser known candidates out of his pre-primary match with Reagan in New Hampshire...
...The unprecedented number of debates flows out of a confluence of changes in technology (cheap satellite time), commerce (cable competition with the networks), election regulation (state spending limits for candidates with Federal funding), and politics (rank-and-file influence on selection of the major parties' nominees...
...At relatively little cost, satellites have bounced these shows across the country to affiliates of the Public Broadcasting System, C-span and CNN...
...They're less local debates than they were before," says Austin Ranney, editor in 1979 of The Past and Future of Presidential Debates...
...These debates, to be sure, are hardly classical affairs...
...We've seen an explosion in debates because in the last eight years they have become such an accepted institution," notes Dorothy Ridings, president of the League of Women Voters...
...The 1984 Democratic candidates have faced provocative and opinionated remarks by such questioners as Koppel, Donahue and reporter Karen Elliot House of the Wall Street Journal...
...In earlyprimary states, cable systems have tape-delayed afternoon events and use them to compete with the networks in prime time...
...The explanation is not machismo...
...dale, has appeared with his seven competitors again and again...
...I'm just following your lead from earlier events like this...
...They are discussions, cross-talks, arguments, televised job interviews...
...One of the reasons so many heard Lincoln and Douglas debate was that both men, like most generals of their time, were tenors whose voices could carry a long way...
...Those numbers are hefty when compared to the 13.8 million Americans who voted in the 1980 Democratic primaries—not to mention the smaller number who will participate this year, since the percentage of convention delegates to be chosen at the polls has been reduced by new party rules from 74 to just over 50 per cent...
...One intriguing side effect," he further observes, is that this " makes it less possible to say loudly and clearly in Iowa something you wouldn't want heard in Florida or Georgia...
...Since August, rather than a boring series of high-toned, high-pitched orations, most of the multiple efforts have provided a lively, mildly combative, sometimes revealing mix of questions, answers, poses, wisecracks, and expositions of policy...
...Washington'-USA THE DEMOCRATIC DEBATES BY ANDREW MOLLISON Washington Televised pre-primary confrontations among one party's Presidential aspirants, an only-in-America hybrid of the classical debate and the celebrity talk show, have seized center stage in the 1984 campaign...
...Commercials lack spontaneity...
...Network interview shows allow a greater number of follow-up questions than the simultaneous appearances of the candidates, but peer-conscious hosts often use them to search for breaking news, or to explore sophisticated nuances mainly of interest to an informed elite...
...Mondale, wildly waving his hand for recognition, standing erect throughout the bout with Glenn— which for all its grandstanding, also reflected the tense interplay of conflicting ambitions and battlefield camaraderie that has developed among the Democratic contenders...
...A quiet stare or a roll of the eyes can be more useful than points from an index card...
...Other debates have been held before audiences ranging from New York politicians and Iowa farmers and peace activists to Massachusetts feminists and foreign policy experts...
...If there is still a race, further face-offs will be held in Pittsburgh April 5, and in Dallas-Fort Worth May 2. "Sometimes the more freewheeling format in the crowded debates stresses equity less, but sponsoring organizations want it to be engaging enough so that people will watch," Ridings explains...
...Senator Ernest Hollings of South Carolina poking the air like a relentless prosecutor while telling one opponent, "We're in a trade war, and you don't know it," and charging that another "flies all over this country in a foreign airplane, saying 'Buy America, Buy America, Buy America.'" • The Reverend Jesse Jackson of Illinois saying at Harvard what the whites had not said, or would not say: that poverty, not patriotism, accounts for the disproportionately high number of minorities among American combat troops...
...The League, prematurely written off as a sponsor by those who recalled the stiff settings of its past general election debates and forgot the informality of its approach during the 1980 Republican primaries, will sponsor the rest of the prime preconvention matches...
...Former Florida Governor Reubin Askew looking flummoxed when moderator Ted Koppel pointed to a tiny wrench Askew had been waving to illustrate Pentagon waste, and told him, "You certainly got your 16 cents worth out of that...
...In short, despite their drawbacks, the debates constitute a healthy tug toward direct information-gathering by the voters...
Vol. 67 • February 1984 • No. 3
