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Gore Takes Round 1

By William Saletan
Posted Friday, Jan. 7, 2000, at 3:30 AM ET

Al Gore and Bill Bradley faced off Wednesday night in the first debate of 2000. Here's a play-by-play analysis of the debate's key themes and exchanges.

1. Ball control. In football, your opponent can't score unless he has the ball. Therefore, the longer you keep possession of the ball, the more likely you are to win the game. Gore is killing Bradley in this department by staying on the attack. Let's look at three plays from the debate.

a) Moderator Peter Jennings asks each man whether his opponent has "ever taken a vote of yours or a quote out of context." Bradley says yes. Gore dances around the question ("I haven't complained about any. … I won't accuse him of that"), then finally says no. Bradley gives the honest answer, but Gore gives the smart one. Normally, when you're invited to accuse your opponent of something, the smart course is to accept the offer. But look more closely: Jennings is inviting you to accuse your opponent of accusing you of something. You're the one ultimately being accused. Suppose you say you're angry that your opponent has accused you of kicking your dog. Some viewers, after turning off their televisions, will think your opponent is a vicious liar. But most will wonder whether you kick your dog.

By saying no, Gore avoids this trap. Bradley, however, walks into it. He faults Gore for suggesting "that I was going to hurt African-Americans [and] Latinos with [my] health care program" and "that I am going to destroy Medicaid without saying what it is going to be replaced with." Bradley explains why Gore's charge is unfair, but Gore gets to repeat and elaborate on the accusation: "Medicaid is eliminated, and they're given instead a little $150 a month voucher. … Not a single [health plan] can be purchased for anything close to $150 a month." Bradley explains that his $150 is a "weighted average," not a cap. But Gore tells a joke making fun of "weighted average" as a nerdy weasel word. Gore is lying about the "cap" and the "voucher." But politically, he wins the round, because both men end up spending several minutes discussing the principal charge against Bradley without discussing any of the charges against Gore.

b) Another panelist asks each candidate whether "you have ever had to make a difficult decision that you knew would hurt you politically." Bradley picks a vote on which he differed from "most of my Democratic colleagues." Gore, however, picks two votes on which he differed specifically from Bradley: President Reagan's budget cuts ("I wish that Bill had stood up to that one") and the authorization to use force in the Persian Gulf (on which Bradley voted no). Bradley answers the question at face value. Gore uses it to land two good punches.

c) Each candidate is invited to ask a question of the other. Bradley asks Gore why he isn't proposing universal health-insurance coverage. Gore neutralizes the question and turns it on Bradley. "Both of us have proposed the same goal: high-quality health care for all," says Gore. "I devoted $374 billion to the solvency of Medicare. You have not devoted one penny to ensuring the solvency of Medicare. And my question to you is: Why not?" Bradley complains that it's not Gore's time to ask questions. But Jennings replies that Gore can ask the question, and Bradley never gets off a solid answer to it.

2. Gore's credibility problem. Gore makes lots of allegations about Bradley's past votes and future plans. To sustain those allegations, Gore needs to husband his credibility. The best way to do this is to admit the truth when it's disadvantageous to him. He begins by making such a concession about the 1996 Democratic fund-raising scandal: "It was wrong. And I think that the phone calls that I made were a mistake." But as the debate goes on, Gore repeatedly strains credulity. He asks New Hampshire voters "to give me a come-from-behind upset victory here," and then, after Bradley points out the absurdity of Gore's plea--"Al, your underdog pitch brings tears to my eyes"--Gore repeats his claim that it would be an "upset victory."

Yes, if Gore wins New Hampshire, he could argue that it's an upset. And, yes, he needs the media to buy into that assumption. But saying it so baldly, and then repeating it, is counterproductive. Gore does this all the time--"risky tax scheme," "no controlling legal authority," etc.--and seems incapable of controlling the habit. The problem is not that he comes off as a talking-points robot--which he does--but that he insults everyone's intelligence. He looks like a suck-up student who thinks he can get a good grade by parroting the professor's buzzwords. When he calls Republican tax cuts a "tax scheme" and calls his hypothetical New Hampshire victory an "upset," you get the feeling not only that he's twisting the truth, but also that he thinks you're too stupid to realize it. And the deeper that feeling sinks in, the less attention voters will pay to anything Gore says.

3. Bradley's arrogance problem. If Gore's flaw is dishonesty, Bradley's flaw is moral and intellectual vanity. Bradley began the campaign determined to convey his virtue and wisdom, and he succeeded. Now his problem is that he can't turn it off. The more he equates his candidacy with goodness and enlightenment, and the more condescendingly he dismisses Gore ("Let me explain to you, Al, how the private sector works. … I can say that in much shorter words"), the more voters wonder whether Bradley knows his limits and is capable of learning from his mistakes.

Gore, recognizing this Achilles' heel, goes after it with a crowbar. Reciting Bradley's votes for the Reagan budget cuts, against welfare reform, and against the use force in the Persian Gulf, Gore asks, "Would you vote differently on any of those three votes if you had it to do over again? Were they mistakes?" Bradley replies that they weren't, and Gore pounces on this answer: "I think all three were mistakes, but I'm not going to debate the details. … My point is beyond that, Bill. In all those words about the three different votes, one word I didn't hear was the word 'mistake.' And here's why I think that is important. I think our country deserves a president who, when he makes a mistake, is willing to acknowledge it and willing to learn from it, because I believe that the presidency is not an academic exercise. It's not an extended seminar on theory. … If I make a mistake, I'll do my best to own up to it and then to learn from it, and learn from you [the audience] about how we can deal with the reality as we find it."

Eventually, Bradley remembers something he admits was a mistake--"I voted against Alan Greenspan the first time" --and everybody laughs. But Gore has found a big chink in Bradley's armor. He has found three votes on which Bradley took unpopular positions, and he has found that when pressed about those votes, Bradley exposes a character trait that puts off many voters. If history is any guide, Gore will exploit that dilemma for the rest of the campaign. But if Gore doesn't learn to stop talking like a used car salesman, nobody's going to be listening.

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William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.
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Highlights from the Fray:


The American voters, as individuals and as a group, would be better served if they analyzed debates to the best of their ability as Mr. Saletan has. However, unlike Mr. Saletan, the American voter should not be watching a debate attempting to discern how his or her fellow voters will "feel" in the face of Bradley's perceived arrogance or "react" to Gore's perceived pandering. Voting almost solely on the basis of who makes us feel better or worse, which Mr. Saletan perhaps rightly assumes that most Americans do, is not always wise.

We as voters should be analyzing the debate to determine for ourselves who would be a better president. If more American voters watched debates with this end in mind, then Bill Bradley's decision to answer questions directly and honestly would not be viewed as a liability as it did in Mr. Saletan's analysis, and Al Gore's ability to attack Bradley during his responses to direct questions would not be viewed as such an asset. Politics is a game filled with men and women who play games to personally succeed, and therein lies the reason for Mr. Saletan's use of the boxing match metaphor for this political debate. The presidency is so much more than that, and Bradley's directness, honesty, vision, and genuine sense of humor could indeed prove valuable to himself in his quest for the presidency and to our nation, if voters would analyze practically instead of simply reacting to the pandering of political games.

--Dave Reidy

(To reply, click here.)


I had the great opportunity to watch the debates with a group of 40 people--political science professors, political analysts, journalists and some party activists.

On your b) point on the question "have you ever had to make a decision that you knew would hurt you politically" you seemed to give the round to Gore as he used the question to "land two good punches" while Bradley answered the question "at face value."

We scored the candidates on every issue/question throughout the debate and that round with us went to Bradley, 36 - 4. This was, I think precisely for the same reasoning that you cited to score the round to Gore. Just thought that was interesting.

--Eric

(To reply, click here.)


Saletan's analysis of the debate makes a compelling case for Gore winning. However, Saletan seems to be using post-debate transcripts and a scoring system that rewards hard punches whether they are below the belt or not. I wonder if those who watch the debate in real time and don't listen to "postgame" analysis score it that way. Maybe those who are truly undecided aren't impressed by someone using "ball control," for example. I didn't watch the debate so I'm interested in the posts of those who did. I suspect a viewer comes away with a general impression of "comfort level" with a politician, and that does not necessarily correlate with the who "won" on pure debating scoresheets.

--Will

(To reply, click here.)


William Saletan says that Bradley's refusal to acknowledge mistakes is an "achilles heel" for Al Gore to sink his teeth into. I disagree - in that exchange, Bradley defended his choices--how can he say they were mistakes, when he doesn't believe they were? Looking for mistakes? Re-run the video of Al's appalling outdoor performance on Impeachment Day.

Bill Bradley looks "arrogant" because he isn't desperate enough for the Presidency so as to sacrifice his self-image. Once upon a time, that was recognized as having integrity (literally, an "integrated self"); nowadays, hewing to one's own line (as opposed to the self-abasement practiced by so many in politics and business) is viewed as snobbery. Bottom line is, the man would rather be Bill Bradley than President, and why is that bad? His media problem isn't that he seems aloof or overly serious, but that on some gut level, he doesn't seem serious enough about it.

By contrast, Al Gore looks desperate: what will he wear next week? What canned joke will he stutter out next? What relative's misfortune will he capitalize on next? How many more facts can he memorize? It's too bad, because Gore seems decent, sincere and competent. But he's the Prince Charles of American politics--a genuinely serious guy who by misfortune ended up in a circus act.

--David Law

(To reply, click here.)

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