The Not So Great Debate Debate
Carlson, Tucker
The Not So Great Debate Debate The Bush and Gore campaigns engage in a ritual squabble. BY TUCKER CARLSON AS OF LAST WEEK, Al Gore had been invited to participate in 45 presidential debates. Gore...
...Bush is very upset.' They feigned outrage...
...The Bush campaign responded immediately...
...Neither is very convincing...
...Late last week Gore announced that, before he will debate Bush in any other forum, Bush must first agree to appear at a commission-sponsored debate...
...They kind of created themselves out of thin air...
...And anyway, in the end, Bush will debate Gore...
...Dick Cheney will meet Joe Lieberman twice...
...Some on Bush's staff believe it was his best performance...
...They called us and said, 'How dare you...
...Bush could bomb in one and make it up at the next...
...It was certainly more impressive than the performance Bush gave last December, when he decided to skip the early primary debates...
...The Bush campaign is taking the debates seriously, but no one seems panicked...
...Judd Gregg, who will play the part of Gore in mock debates...
...If Bush were to agree, television viewers could watch a new presidential debate every weeknight from Labor Day to the election...
...This arrangement is called "roadblock" coverage (viewers can't get around it), and it guarantees enormous ratings...
...Campaign advisers have read and reread a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly by James Fallows that offers insight into Gore's fundamental debating strategy (needle opponents until they lose control of themselves...
...Gore will probably win the rhetorical battle because, fundamentally, his argument makes more sense: The commission debates reach the most people...
...Bush will spar extensively with Sen...
...By the last debate, in California in March, Bush had improved...
...Bush doesn't want to participate in a debate like this, the Gore campaign charges, because he is fearful of looking foolish...
...Steve Forbes, hardly a master of the extemporaneous jab, seemed to stump him with a simple question about oil exploration, a business Bush knows intimately...
...Bush has said he will appear in three debates with Al Gore...
...Louis television studio...
...No doubt, agrees Bush media consultant Mark McKinnon...
...Road-blocking doesn't carry the same weight it did 15 years ago," says Bush campaign manager Joe All-baugh, who spent last week meeting with network executives in Washington...
...The second is, "No one cares" about boring logistical details like these: "This is a debate about a debate...
...Bush staffers almost never make unauthorized statements...
...We're thinking outside the box," explains an aide...
...We wrote an editorial saying that real men can make schedule changes to accommodate presidential debates...
...The irony is that Bush aides are fairly confident about their candidate's debating skills...
...Fleischer goes on to point out that in 1964, 1968, and 1972 there were no presidential debates at all...
...They feel prepared...
...Bush officials say they feel no pressure to rise to the bait...
...They're not sanctioned by any state or federal law that I'm aware of," Allbaugh says...
...There is a don't-throw-me-into-the-briar-patch quality to statements like these...
...With each debate, McCain reasoned, Bush would grow more comfortable and fluid...
...We know this because they pretend not to be...
...And Al Gore is a far better publicist than the rest of the GOP primary candidates combined...
...We think participating in a record-breaking number is a fitting way to bring the issues before the American people," says campaign spokesman Ari Fleischer...
...For what it's worth, all of this is true...
...Because of cable and satellite there are 250 channels people can watch...
...They don't want the first debate he participates in to be watched by 97 million people...
...The belief in Austin is, Bush will turn out to be more skillful on stage than expected...
...The other candidates were unable to turn Bush's no-show into a significant news story...
...By one estimate, the final presidential debate in 1992 drew 97 million viewers...
...During one of his first appearances with the other candidates, in Arizona, Bush came close to embarrassing himself...
...He's very, very good...
...Other Bush strategists are more direct: "Nobody elected the commission," says one...
...Relatively few people outside of New Hampshire even noticed...
...If members of Bush's staff really thought their boss was going to get clobbered in the debates, it is unlikely they'd say so...
...They want practice runs," scoffs a senior Gore adviser...
...Why not agree to them...
...The Bush campaign has a couple of answers...
...No other modern presidential ticket has appeared in more than four...
...Who put them in charge...
...This time, people in the rest of the country are paying attention...
...Perhaps these arguments will work...
...It may have helped that John McCain appeared that night by remote from a St...
...Gore has "accepted all of them," boasts aide Mark Fabiani, "legitimate and half-way legitimate," including an offer from would-be moderator David Letterman...
...This is not likely to happen...
...This year, the commission has proposed debates that would be 90 minutes long, broadcast during prime time...
...Gore says he wants to debate as often as possible, and he has challenged George W. Bush to join him in all 45 forums...
...Each debate would become less significant...
...Gore himself has pressed the point relentlessly...
...Bush claimed he couldn't attend because Laura was receiving an alumni award at Southern Methodist University," remembers Bernadette Malone Connolly, the paper's editorial page editor...
...But even if he doesn't, there is an argument that Bush should debate early and often anyway...
...This was John McCain's advice to Bush during their first kiss-and-make-up meeting this spring in Pittsburgh...
...It is likely they would be aired simultaneously by all six television networks...
...And with so many debates to watch, public interest would rapidly diminish...
...But unlike every other major presidential candidate since 1988, Bush has not agreed to participate in the debates arranged by the nonprofit Commission on Presidential Debates...
...This is roughly what happened during the primaries...
...To reporters who ask, the Bush campaign describes the five debates as "historic...
...It's too inside to matter...
...These are valid questions, but they may cease to matter...
...The point is, the presidential debate commission debates aren't the only possible debates...
...In the end, it didn't matter...
...Al Gore is a formidable debater," says Ari Fleischer...
...Bush, his advisers say, might prefer to stage a debate on a single broadcast network (during a Sunday morning news show, for instance) or on a cable program like Lar^ry King Live...
...The first is, Bush is resisting the debate commission because the debate commission is an instrument of the Washington status quo, and Bush is a maverick...
...If this were a race for debater-in-chief, it would be a runaway...
...One of those debates was sponsored in part by New Hampshire's largest newspaper, the Manchester Union Leader...
...More likely, many voters will conclude that Bush is afraid to debate Gore...
Vol. 5 • September 2000 • No. 48
