Thursday night, if soggy Florida doesn’t first sink or wash away, Americans will see a novel sight: John Kerry and George W. Bush, stripped of their mouthy surrogates, their furrowed-brow handlers, their supporters spewing venom in so-called “527” attack ads.
Especially for voters who’ve been slow to tune in to this year’s presidential campaign, tuning in to the first of three appearances by Kerry and Bush–“debate” isn’t really the right word for this joint press conference–should help answer the question that confounded Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: Who are these guys?
Live from Coral Gables, in 90 minutes of prime time, each of the two major-party presidential candidates (no Naders need apply) will try to convince viewers that he is the nation’s best hope of exterminating terrorists. While no images of the World Trade Center and the school massacre in Russia will flash in the background, don’t be surprised if the candidates invoke those and other horrors to drive home exactly what’s at stake in an election now just five weeks away.
Political reporters have had a field day covering the negotiations between the Kerry and Bush camps over a 32-page memorandum of understanding that sets out the ground rules for the joint appearances, plus a fourth involving John Edwards and Dick Cheney, the candidates for vice president. In Thursday’s debate (OK, we’ll use that word), the candidates will answer questions from PBS’ Jim Lehrer.
The most delightful chronicle of this wrangling for advantage appears in the new issue of Time magazine. Some of the memorandum’s provisions, such as dressing rooms of equivalent size, are predictable. More revealing is word that the lecterns will be 50 inches tall because the Bushies wanted to diminish Kerry’s 5-inch height advantage. Similarly, the Kerryites caved to the Bushies’ demand that television viewers be able to see the warning signal when either candidate exceeds his time to answer a question. The obvious gambit: to embarrass Kerry if he strays into meandering soliloquies.
The Bush camp, well aware that many Americans will watch only one debate, succeeded in negotiating that the first be about terrorism and foreign affairs. Stunts Kerry used effectively in prior debates–such as strolling away from his lectern, Clinton-style–are out. Bush’s negotiators (led by former Secretary of State James Baker) also deflected a Cold War offensive from Kerry’s team (led by lawyer Vernon Jordan). Jordan caved on his demand that the debate hall be chilled to below 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Bush’s negotiators knew why Kerry’s people wanted that: The Bushies had noticed, in videotapes of Kerry’s prior debates, that at times he had to wipe a rivulet of perspiration from his right temple to his eye. “He’s a sweater,” one Republican official triumphantly told Time, “and women don’t like sweaters.” So the temperature, the memorandum says, will be a vague “appropriate.”
In return for surrendering on these points, Jordan got what Kerry most needed: three face-offs with Bush, one more than the president’s team had wanted. Or said it wanted. In the negotiators’ houses of mirrors, every ultimatum may only be a bargaining chip.
It’s become a journalistic cliche that, because voters know Bush so well, Kerry has the most to prove Thursday night. But the obvious corollary is that Bush, now leading in the polls, has the most to lose. The Time story notes that remarkable moments do occur during debates–often as viewers find confirmation of their misgivings about candidates: “Richard Nixon’s inner darkness [1960], Gerald Ford’s cluelessness [1976], George H.W. Bush’s aloofness [1992], [Al] Gore’s changeability [2000].” In 1980, a charming Ronald Reagan smote Jimmy Carter and his nitpicking about Medicare with a wry smile and four little words: “There you go again!” And in 1988, when Michael Dukakis was asked, “If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor the death penalty?”, his candidacy vaporized as he dispassionately answered, “No.”
We’ll soon see whether this year’s debates produce such memorable lines. Or such devastating outcomes. All of which rests, of course, on Americans learning more about who these guys are.
