“The majority of his tax cut goes to the wealthiest one percent of taxpayers,” Mr. Gore charged with the same cadence and tone that he has used a thousand times before.
“I have a positive vision,” Mr. Bush said. “We need a fresh start.” Mr. Bush has used this line so often, one gets the feeling it’s his writers who need a fresh start.
The drama — the real news of this scintillating debate — was firstly the posture and body language of these two candidates. Mr. Gore looked like a recently unwrapped nutcracker, spending much of the debate looming over Mr. Bush’s shoulder as if he had forgotten where his seat was. He seemed to have no sense that he was invading his opponent’s space. Even when Bush sort of glared at him with a down home sniff that screamed “what the devil are you doing here?” Gore just stood his ground like a recently planted walnut tree.
Early on, Mr. Gore went for the big dramatic gesture. Trying to pull a Rick Lazio, he rashly crossed the stage toward Mr. Bush trying to get the Governor to support a patient’s bill of rights. The Bush dismissal and the audience’s discomfort ended up dampening the volley.
Though at moments he seemed to be relaxed to the point of lethargy, Bush’s laid-back demeanor conveyed an overall sense of calm confidence. Faced with the imperious aggression of the Vice President, Mr. Bush played it cool. At one point during a Gore tirade, spread-legged, sipping on his water, Bush appeared to be sunning himself on a hot, dusty back porch, Augustus McCrae-style.
Substantively, the most important moment of the debate was a follow-up question. After an audience member quizzed the Governor on affirmative action, the Vice President began haranguing Bush, hoping to throw him off his game.
“Would you support affirmative action?” Gore challenged.
“If there are no quotas,” responded Bush.
“There are no quotas. Do you support affirmative action?” Gore countered.
Now according to the rules set by the candidates themselves, neither was to directly question the other. After a few more exchanges, Bush, in an appeal for fairness, glared at the VP and said, “It’s about rules Mr. Vice President. But evidently rules don’t mean anything to the Vice President.”
A stung Gore retreated. Later Bush would deride Mr. Gore’s tactics as “high school debating tricks.”
Through all the posturing and sniping the noticeable distinction between these two men is their conceptions of government and the functions it should perform. Mr. Gore favors a more activist, centralized government that spends more and taxes more; Mr. Bush envisions a slightly smaller government with more power ceded to local authorities, that taxes less.
But actually these men disagree on much more. You just didn’t hear them discuss those things in the debates. Issues important to Catholics like abortion, euthanasia, childcare tax credits, and education were hardly touched in the debates. This is partly the moderator Jim Lehrer’s fault, but in the last debate, the fault extends to the citizen inquisitors. If anyone believes the “bipartisan” questioners in St. Louis reflected an honest diversity of opinion, may I suggest you offer your brain up to science, as it is clearly not operating at full capacity.
Every question seemed to be scripted by some special interest group. I hardly think Joe six-pack is overtly concerned about affirmative action, gun control, and pharmaceuticals. Only the lady who asked what the candidates would do about the cultural garbage undermining the nations morality sounded like Middle America. This is what real people are thinking about. Naturally, the candidate’s answers were canned. Bush promised to put filters on public Internet portals and promote character education in school. Gore pointed to his wife Tipper’s parental warning labels and to the past pronouncements of his running mate Joe Lieberman. (Someone should remind Mr. Gore that Tipper hasn’t spoken about profane lyrics since he won the vice presidency, and that Senator Lieberman, the once articulate cultural critic, has been mute on the subject since accepting the Democratic nomination).
The bad news for democracy is that fewer people watched the presidential debates this election season than at any time in recent memory. The ratings were down nearly 50 percent compared to 1996. If the public refused to tune in for the final pageant, what are the chances they will show up on Election Day? Expect a half-hearted turnout on Election Day, and similar leadership come January.
