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getting Krafty at the debates
Campaign '96: Getting Krafty at the Presidential Debates

by harry goldstein

Don't miss Harry Goldstein's other columns on Campaign '96.

DATELINE: Oct. 6, 1996
Hartford Civic Center, Hartford, CT
The first thing to know about the "official" Presidential debates is that reporters eat really well. Phillip Morris and Kraft bought my lunch and stoked me with all the Diet Pepsi I could swill. The debates are brought to you courtesy of corporate America: from the corporate-sponsored debate commission that closed the debate to third party candidates to the Big Boy networks -- NBC/General Electric, ABC/Disney, CBS/Westinghouse, MSNBC/Microsoft-GE, CNN/Time Warner, etcetera -- to the debate itself, which is sponsored by Hartford's corporate community (including Bank of Boston, SNET, Phoenix, Aetna, ITT, Travelers and United Technologies). These companies paid for the forty 27-inch TV monitors and the space at the Hartford Civic Center. There's room here for over 1000 journalists -- 60 traveling with each campaign, 100 with the White House press corps, and 800 others. It's a living room on steroids, where we're all going to get together like one big happy family to watch some TV after dinner.
Only this living room is seriously wired. A couple of guys from ICHAT are here, broadcasting the debate over the Internet in a real-time town hall format, so people can watch the debates together and do some online spin doctoring of their own after it's over. That's sort of like sitting here in the Media Filing Center, except you're in your comfy house and I'm here breathing in the buzz of tomorrow's news taking shape -- and watching a "Perfect Abs" infomercial while I tuck into my turkey sandwich and go through the Connecticut tourist information packet they handed me at the door. Besides the modem lines ICHAT is connected to, there are also phone jacks, power strips, fax machines, copiers and a bank of telephones, everything you would need to get the good word back to The People. They also threw in a bunch of stuff we didn't need: a whale tie-tack, a flimsy Debate 96 baseball cap, a Bank of Boston pen, and a Pez dispenser with ten packs of peppermint Pez. I just wish they'd put a head on the dispenser -- one side Dole's face, the other side Clinton's. The candy could be dispensed from both sides of their collective mouth.

Jim Lehrer: The President said in opening statements we are better off today than we were four years ago. Do you agree?
Bob Dole: Well, he's better off than he was four years ago....Sadaam Hussein is probably better off than he was four years ago. After lunch I case Spin Alley, where there are several small platforms, each just big enough for a network correspondent to set up an interview with a spin doctor and beam the conversation all over the world. Connecticut senator and Democratic Party chair Christopher Dodd is talking to a CBS-affiliate reporter about Bob Dole's bridge to the past and Bill Clinton's bridge to the future, basically the same line he's been spewing on talk show after talk show ever since the Democratic convention.
But the real dirt is being dished by ABC commentator Jeff Greenfield, who is himself being interviewed in Spin Alley about, yes, Spin Alley. It's Jeff's contention that Spin Alley is "silly, not dangerous. It keeps people off the streets." Jeff explains that Spin Alley has metastasized from intimate gatherings into a "ludicrous circus," where the candidates' political lackeys, like Dodd and New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman, show up at Spin Alley hours before the debate to push the canned party line about bridge-building to different political paradigms. And he's right. This is a circus to pump up the drama for a press corps that is made up mostly of local television and radio stations -- Greenfield was being interviewed by TV reporter from Bridgeport, CT -- and a swarm of other small media outlets, including several college newspapers and radio stations, people who can really get into the spectacle because it's so removed from their normal reportage.

Bill Clinton: Senator Dole had some pretty harsh comments about special interest money, but it wasn't me who opposed what we tried to do to save the lives of children who are subject to tobacco, who went to the tobacco growers and bragged about standing up to the federal government when we tried to stop advertising and marketing of tobacco to children. It wasn't me that let the toxic polluters into the halls of Congress to rewrite the rules, the law. Dole did.
While eating dinner -- "gourmet" Kraft Corporation Tombstone Pizza -- I watch a dizzying parade of images on the banks of television monitors: a food dehydrator commercial, the football game, a Lawrence Welk Hawaiian music special and Jim Lehrer via a remote feed going through a rehearsal across town at Trinity College. Suddenly, Ross Perot appears on the monitor directly in front of me -- a pre-debate infomercial. Two journalists from Italy's RAI television network are glancing at Perot between bites of pizza. One of them loads a tape recorder with batteries. The other gets up, takes the dinner plates to the garbage, and returns a few minutes later with one of the "Unabomber for President" bumper stickers that a couple of guys were handing out in front of the Civic Center. The Italians switch the channel. Everyone else seems to tune Perot out as well, including me; some of us are heading upstairs to watch the University of Connecticut marching band perform unintelligible renditions of "Start Me Up" and "Slow Ride," while the majorettes, clad only in sequined, one-piece swimsuit thingies, skin turned to gooseflesh, toss batons and shiver in the 49-degree October twilight. Some guy is selling Clinton and Dole hand puppets while Perot protesters walk around confused, hoisting a Perot placard for a moment before they let it fall by their sides, disappointed that no one's paying any attention to them whatsoever.
On opposites sides of Hartford, Dole and Clinton supporters are holding rallies. Dole's is at the Armory, where 3000 people have shown up -- optimistically, the backdrop behind the podium is a football field end zone with the words Victory '96 -- a naked attempt to bank on Republican's enthusiasm for the Kemp half of the ticket. Clinton's at the Hastings Hotel with 1500 supporters. It's a media circus, no doubt, except the Big Top is only open to the Big Boys, the ones with the special Debate Hall credentials. I suppose physical locale doesn't really matter -- we're all going to see the same show. The special Debate Media deserve front row seats; after all, their corporations paid for them.

Lehrer: Senator Dole, speaking of your tax plan, do you still think that's a good idea, the 15 percent across the board tax cut?
Dole: Oh, yes, and you'd be eligible. And so would the former president, yes.
Clinton: I need it.
Dole: The people need it, that's the point.
As the fateful moment approaches, Clinton-Gore workers blanket the press corps with a "prebuttal" entitled "Dole vs. the Facts" -- a list of things to look for from Dole tonight, statements he's made in the last few weeks about how bad the economy is and how big government has gotten, rebutted by "the facts" according to the Clinton-Gore campaign. A savvy move, if not a bit condescending. Certainly sneakier than anything the Dole-Kemp camp has pulled so far.
The room here at the Civic Center has gone strangely silent as the candidates take their positions at the podium -- a sharp contrast from the cheering in the hall itself, which is being pumped in at high volume via big speakers positioned all around the press pit. Dole looks like he's eaten something disagreeable for dinner. Clinton is scribbling, maybe "Dick Morris, Dick Morris," just to get himself pumped...and he's praying, even though he's really not the one who needs to be doing so. Then again, maybe Dole figures his campaign is beyond even God's help now.
Dole comes out fighting, letting loose with that droll Dole humor that his people and much of the Dole press entourage say he's famous for. He knocks Clinton back on his heels, and I think during the first part of the debate that someone really needed to tell Bill to cool out. Fortunately for him, it seemed as though his internal emotional thermostat was working perfectly and after an hour of beating the drum on education and medical leave and crime and "TheEconomyStupid," Clinton himself let loose with a few good 'uns. This seemed to rattle Dole a bit, who did his best Bob Dole imitation by referring to himself in the third person ("In my view, if you want to be protected, you ought to vote for Bob Dole..."), at which point every reporter around me started laughing and shaking their heads. After Dole pathetically grasped for the youth vote in his closing statement by awkwardly announcing his campaign homepage URL, I rushed over to Spin Alley to witness the whirligig of analysis and damage control.
Clinton had his people out early and in force -- Dodd, press secretary Mike McCurry, Senior Aide George Stephanopoulos, former Texas governor Ann Richards, political adviser Harold Ickes, Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, Reverend Jesse Jackson, EPA director Carol Browner, just to name a few. Some Republican governors did show up, notably New Jersey's Christine Todd Whitman and Pennsylvania's Tom Ridge -- but they were lost in the crowd. I heard many reporters saying to their camera person, "I need a Republican. Where are they?" Clinton's people avoided getting lost in the shuffle by pairing handlers armed with red name placards held aloft high over the heads of the spin doctors they were with, beacons in a pool of hungry piranhas, dragging their people from one gaggle of quote-starved reporters to the next. These reporters wanted to be spun, and then bring the spin to the people -- because, obviously, people can't make up their minds without some post-game analysis.

Clinton: Let me just mention, Senator Dole voted for $900 billion in tax increases. His running mate, Jack Kemp, once said that Bob Dole never met a tax he didn't hike.
Here's mine, for what it's worth (hey, I was in Spin Alley after all, and absorbed this analysis through osmosis). The game is going into the final quarter and Clinton's maintained a comfortable lead for the first three periods. Dole hit a couple of lay-ups near the beginning of the fourth, but now Clinton's gone into the four corners and will freeze the ball for the rest of the game. The next debate is town hall style -- more to Clinton's liking. He'll pick apart Dole's static zone defense with pin-point statistics -- and after he breaks Dole down with a few outside shots, Bill with take it strong to the hole, dunking hard over hapless Bob Dole on his way to what could well be the largest margin of victory for a Democrat this century.

Harry Goldstein is a writer and editor living in Manhattan. His work has appeared in "Utne Reader," "American Book Review," "Promethean," AltX, word.com, and other periodicals.
© 1996 Harry Goldstein, All Rights Reserved

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POLITICS & COMMUNITY Campaign '96: Getting Krafty at the Presidential Debates by harry goldstein Don't miss Harry Goldstein's other columns on Campaign '96.	DATELINE: Oct. 6, 1996 Hartford Civic Center, Hartford, CT The first thing to know about the "official" Presidential debates is that reporters eat really well. Phillip Morris and Kraft bought my lunch and stoked me with all the Diet Pepsi I could swill. The debates are brought to you courtesy of corporate America: from the corporate-sponsored debate commission that closed the debate to third party candidates to the Big Boy networks -- NBC/General Electric, ABC/Disney, CBS/Westinghouse, MSNBC/Microsoft-GE, CNN/Time Warner, etcetera -- to the debate itself, which is sponsored by Hartford's corporate community (including Bank of Boston, SNET, Phoenix, Aetna, ITT, Travelers and United Technologies). These companies paid for the forty 27-inch TV monitors and the space at the Hartford Civic Center. There's room here for over 1000 journalists -- 60 traveling with each campaign, 100 with the White House press corps, and 800 others. It's a living room on steroids, where we're all going to get together like one big happy family to watch some TV after dinner. Only this living room is seriously wired. A couple of guys from ICHAT are here, broadcasting the debate over the Internet in a real-time town hall format, so people can watch the debates together and do some online spin doctoring of their own after it's over. That's sort of like sitting here in the Media Filing Center, except you're in your comfy house and I'm here breathing in the buzz of tomorrow's news taking shape -- and watching a "Perfect Abs" infomercial while I tuck into my turkey sandwich and go through the Connecticut tourist information packet they handed me at the door. Besides the modem lines ICHAT is connected to, there are also phone jacks, power strips, fax machines, copiers and a bank of telephones, everything you would need to get the good word back to The People. They also threw in a bunch of stuff we didn't need: a whale tie-tack, a flimsy Debate 96 baseball cap, a Bank of Boston pen, and a Pez dispenser with ten packs of peppermint Pez. I just wish they'd put a head on the dispenser -- one side Dole's face, the other side Clinton's. The candy could be dispensed from both sides of their collective mouth.
Jim Lehrer: The President said in opening statements we are better off today than we were four years ago. Do you agree? Bob Dole: Well, he's better off than he was four years ago....Sadaam Hussein is probably better off than he was four years ago.	After lunch I case Spin Alley, where there are several small platforms, each just big enough for a network correspondent to set up an interview with a spin doctor and beam the conversation all over the world. Connecticut senator and Democratic Party chair Christopher Dodd is talking to a CBS-affiliate reporter about Bob Dole's bridge to the past and Bill Clinton's bridge to the future, basically the same line he's been spewing on talk show after talk show ever since the Democratic convention. But the real dirt is being dished by ABC commentator Jeff Greenfield, who is himself being interviewed in Spin Alley about, yes, Spin Alley. It's Jeff's contention that Spin Alley is "silly, not dangerous. It keeps people off the streets." Jeff explains that Spin Alley has metastasized from intimate gatherings into a "ludicrous circus," where the candidates' political lackeys, like Dodd and New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman, show up at Spin Alley hours before the debate to push the canned party line about bridge-building to different political paradigms. And he's right. This is a circus to pump up the drama for a press corps that is made up mostly of local television and radio stations -- Greenfield was being interviewed by TV reporter from Bridgeport, CT -- and a swarm of other small media outlets, including several college newspapers and radio stations, people who can really get into the spectacle because it's so removed from their normal reportage.
Bill Clinton: Senator Dole had some pretty harsh comments about special interest money, but it wasn't me who opposed what we tried to do to save the lives of children who are subject to tobacco, who went to the tobacco growers and bragged about standing up to the federal government when we tried to stop advertising and marketing of tobacco to children. It wasn't me that let the toxic polluters into the halls of Congress to rewrite the rules, the law. Dole did.	While eating dinner -- "gourmet" Kraft Corporation Tombstone Pizza -- I watch a dizzying parade of images on the banks of television monitors: a food dehydrator commercial, the football game, a Lawrence Welk Hawaiian music special and Jim Lehrer via a remote feed going through a rehearsal across town at Trinity College. Suddenly, Ross Perot appears on the monitor directly in front of me -- a pre-debate infomercial. Two journalists from Italy's RAI television network are glancing at Perot between bites of pizza. One of them loads a tape recorder with batteries. The other gets up, takes the dinner plates to the garbage, and returns a few minutes later with one of the "Unabomber for President" bumper stickers that a couple of guys were handing out in front of the Civic Center. The Italians switch the channel. Everyone else seems to tune Perot out as well, including me; some of us are heading upstairs to watch the University of Connecticut marching band perform unintelligible renditions of "Start Me Up" and "Slow Ride," while the majorettes, clad only in sequined, one-piece swimsuit thingies, skin turned to gooseflesh, toss batons and shiver in the 49-degree October twilight. Some guy is selling Clinton and Dole hand puppets while Perot protesters walk around confused, hoisting a Perot placard for a moment before they let it fall by their sides, disappointed that no one's paying any attention to them whatsoever. On opposites sides of Hartford, Dole and Clinton supporters are holding rallies. Dole's is at the Armory, where 3000 people have shown up -- optimistically, the backdrop behind the podium is a football field end zone with the words Victory '96 -- a naked attempt to bank on Republican's enthusiasm for the Kemp half of the ticket. Clinton's at the Hastings Hotel with 1500 supporters. It's a media circus, no doubt, except the Big Top is only open to the Big Boys, the ones with the special Debate Hall credentials. I suppose physical locale doesn't really matter -- we're all going to see the same show. The special Debate Media deserve front row seats; after all, their corporations paid for them.
Lehrer: Senator Dole, speaking of your tax plan, do you still think that's a good idea, the 15 percent across the board tax cut? Dole: Oh, yes, and you'd be eligible. And so would the former president, yes. Clinton: I need it. Dole: The people need it, that's the point.	As the fateful moment approaches, Clinton-Gore workers blanket the press corps with a "prebuttal" entitled "Dole vs. the Facts" -- a list of things to look for from Dole tonight, statements he's made in the last few weeks about how bad the economy is and how big government has gotten, rebutted by "the facts" according to the Clinton-Gore campaign. A savvy move, if not a bit condescending. Certainly sneakier than anything the Dole-Kemp camp has pulled so far. The room here at the Civic Center has gone strangely silent as the candidates take their positions at the podium -- a sharp contrast from the cheering in the hall itself, which is being pumped in at high volume via big speakers positioned all around the press pit. Dole looks like he's eaten something disagreeable for dinner. Clinton is scribbling, maybe "Dick Morris, Dick Morris," just to get himself pumped...and he's praying, even though he's really not the one who needs to be doing so. Then again, maybe Dole figures his campaign is beyond even God's help now. Dole comes out fighting, letting loose with that droll Dole humor that his people and much of the Dole press entourage say he's famous for. He knocks Clinton back on his heels, and I think during the first part of the debate that someone really needed to tell Bill to cool out. Fortunately for him, it seemed as though his internal emotional thermostat was working perfectly and after an hour of beating the drum on education and medical leave and crime and "TheEconomyStupid," Clinton himself let loose with a few good 'uns. This seemed to rattle Dole a bit, who did his best Bob Dole imitation by referring to himself in the third person ("In my view, if you want to be protected, you ought to vote for Bob Dole..."), at which point every reporter around me started laughing and shaking their heads. After Dole pathetically grasped for the youth vote in his closing statement by awkwardly announcing his campaign homepage URL, I rushed over to Spin Alley to witness the whirligig of analysis and damage control. Clinton had his people out early and in force -- Dodd, press secretary Mike McCurry, Senior Aide George Stephanopoulos, former Texas governor Ann Richards, political adviser Harold Ickes, Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, Reverend Jesse Jackson, EPA director Carol Browner, just to name a few. Some Republican governors did show up, notably New Jersey's Christine Todd Whitman and Pennsylvania's Tom Ridge -- but they were lost in the crowd. I heard many reporters saying to their camera person, "I need a Republican. Where are they?" Clinton's people avoided getting lost in the shuffle by pairing handlers armed with red name placards held aloft high over the heads of the spin doctors they were with, beacons in a pool of hungry piranhas, dragging their people from one gaggle of quote-starved reporters to the next. These reporters wanted to be spun, and then bring the spin to the people -- because, obviously, people can't make up their minds without some post-game analysis.
Clinton: Let me just mention, Senator Dole voted for $900 billion in tax increases. His running mate, Jack Kemp, once said that Bob Dole never met a tax he didn't hike.	Here's mine, for what it's worth (hey, I was in Spin Alley after all, and absorbed this analysis through osmosis). The game is going into the final quarter and Clinton's maintained a comfortable lead for the first three periods. Dole hit a couple of lay-ups near the beginning of the fourth, but now Clinton's gone into the four corners and will freeze the ball for the rest of the game. The next debate is town hall style -- more to Clinton's liking. He'll pick apart Dole's static zone defense with pin-point statistics -- and after he breaks Dole down with a few outside shots, Bill with take it strong to the hole, dunking hard over hapless Bob Dole on his way to what could well be the largest margin of victory for a Democrat this century. Harry Goldstein is a writer and editor living in Manhattan. His work has appeared in "Utne Reader," "American Book Review," "Promethean," AltX, word.com, and other periodicals. © 1996 Harry Goldstein, All Rights Reserved