Vice President George Bush and Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis faced off in their first national debate Sunday night, slamming each other with one- line quips and starkly displaying the policy differences between them.
Competing for 90 minutes on national television, the presidential candidates answered questions, without notes or texts, that ranged over matters from their personal passions to the ”Star Wars” missile defense system.
In their two-minute statements and one-minute rebuttals, both eagerly repeated snippets from previously stated campaign positions, but in an atmosphere free of the made-for-TV artificiality that has been part of many of their earlier public appearances.
In their two-minute closing statements, Bush said the two focal points in this election are opportunity and peace. ”We are the change. I am the change,” he said, repeating a Reagan line.
Dukakis, alluding to his immigrant parents, said: ”I believe in the American dream. I`m a product of it.” Saying he had become increasingly optimistic during the course of the campaign, he said, ”The best America is yet to come.”
Both camps said later that they had accomplished their aims. Bush aides said Dukakis had clearly been labeled a liberal. The governor`s aides said Dukakis had given a better performance and looked more competent.
With only 43 days left before the election, both camps saw this debate as critical and as a kickoff for the most intense phase of the campaign. A second debate is set for either Oct. 13 or 14 in Los Angeles.
The first faceoff between the 64-year-old vice president and the 54-year- old governor, before a panel of three journalists who asked the questions and one serving as moderator, came on a mild evening in North Carolina as a soft rain fell outside Wait Chapel on the campus of Wake Forest University.
Asked about erasing the federal budget deficit, an icy Dukakis cited Bush`s previous pledges and zinged him with, ”If he keeps this up, he`s going to be the Joe Isuzu of American politics,” a reference to a TV commercial in which a car salesman constantly lies.
Bush, his jaw set, listened, then parried: ”Is this the time to unleash our one-liners? That answer was about as clear as Boston Harbor.”
On a question about the need for more housing, Dukakis said, ”Mr. Bush wants to spend billions and trillions on `Star Wars.` ”
A finger-pointing Bush retorted that Dukakis was blurring the issues and said: ”We`re not going to do it in that old Democratic, liberal way.”
Instead, he suggested issuing vouchers, promoting tenant control and keeping interest rates down, ”not go back to the days of the misery index and malaise.”
Asked how he could oppose the death penalty and yet support abortion, Dukakis replied that he is ”opposed to the death penalty and . . . very tough on violent crimes.”
”I don`t favor abortion. . . . The question is who makes the decision,” he added. He claimed Bush was ”prepared to brand a woman a criminal for making this choice.”
The two men showed their dislike for each other in tart exchanges.
Asked about the 37 million Americans who do not have health insurance, Bush said he ”would not sock it to every business in the country” by making them pay health insurance for employees, but would permit people to buy into the Medicaid program.
”George, that`s no answer,” Dukakis responded.
”You may not like the answer, but it`s an answer,” Bush shot back.
Surprised by a question by ABC news anchor Peter Jennings about his reputation for being passionless and technocratic, or the ”smartest clerk in the world,” Dukakis responded:
”I care deeply about people, all people, working people. . . . I am somebody who believes deeply.” He added that he had been a leader in the civil rights movement in Massachusetts and had firmly opposed the Vietnam War. He also referred to his earlier defeat in Massachusetts in his first try for a second term as governor, saying, ”I have learned . . . defeat is sometimes an important lesson.”
Bush, however, said Dukakis has ”misguided passion” and asked, ”Do we want this country to go that far Left?”
Asked about earlier campaign references to Dukakis as ”a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union” and his alleged opposition to the Pledge of Allegiance-campaign ”sound-bites” he has used to attack Dukakis-Bush said: ”I am not questioning his patriotism. I am questioning his judgment.”
In a testy reply, Dukakis challenged that: ”Of course the vice president is questioning my patriotism, and I resent it.”
Bush said that ”people know my position is the sanctity of life. I favor adoption and not abortion.” He admitted, however, ”I haven`t sorted out the penalties” for women who might undergo an abortion were it made illegal. Dukakis said ”sorting out” wasn`t enough.
On another issue, Bush said he supported Head Start and other children`s programs. He said that ”just because I don`t approve a $35 billion program (a reference to the purported cost of educational programs Dukakis would establish) does not mean I have less compassion.”
Dukakis charged that Bush and the Reagan Administration ”cut and slashed and butchered (inner-city programs) and they`ve hurt kids all over this country.” In reply, Bush said: ”This is the problem I have with big-spending liberals: They think the only way to do it is by the federal government doing it all.”
Dukakis was clearly on the attack, and when asked about his inexperience in foreign policy and defense, he riposted, ”That`s a charge that`s always made about governors.” He said Bush himself had made the accusation against President Reagan in 1980 and added pointedly, ”Remember that, George?”
Then Dukakis aligned himself with other governors like Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt who had assumed the presidency directly from their statehouses.
At the same time he branded Bush with failures of the Reagan administration-its association with Panamanian strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega, deposed Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, the Iran-contra affair, and a ”failed policy in Central America.”
”I`m ready to provide the leadership. I want to be the commander in chief,” Dukakis said.
Bush countered strongly, referring to Dukakis` past support of a nuclear freeze and contrasting it with his own World War II experience as a combat pilot.
Bush also showed his familiarity with a number of different weapons systems and said that in dealing with the Soviet Union, ”I`m not going to give away a couple of aces in that card game. . . . We have to keep our eyes open. . . . I don`t want to see us making unilateral cuts when we`re negotiating with” the Soviets.
Asked about the Strategic Defense Initiative, or ”Star Wars,” which he`d earlier called a ”fraud and fantasy,” Dukakis ridiculed it as ”an Astrodome over ourselves.” He said, though, that he would support research in the program at its 1983 level of $1 billion a year.
Bush went further, saying flatly, ”When it is deployable, I will deploy it.”
Neither man provided clear answers when asked what they`d do to release American hostages in the Middle East, but Dukakis used it as a framework for criticizing the administration`s arms-for-hostages scandal.
Asked about his choice of Sen. Dan Quayle as a running mate, Bush replied, ”I`m putting my confidence in a whole generation of people in their thirties and forties.”
He also mentioned there were ”three men” in the race who were knowledgeable about foreign relations, presumably referring to himself, Quayle and Dukakis` running mate, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen-and excluding Dukakis.
”When it comes to ridicule you win the gold medal,” said Dukakis. Bush looked irritated.
Calling Bentsen strong and mature, Dukakis said, ”I think for most people the notion of a President Quayle is a very, very troubling notion.”
