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| CAMPAIGN COUNTDOWN | |
 October 16, 2000  |
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Journalists Tom Oliphant, David Brooks and David Broder discuss the state of the presidential campaign three weeks before the election and one day before the final presidential debate.
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GWEN IFILL: Three veteran political reporters assess the
state of play in the campaign, three weeks before the November 7 election
and on the eve of the last presidential debate. Tom Oliphant of The
Boston Globe, David Brooks of the Weekly Standard, and David
Broder of The Washington Post. David Brooks, we just heard Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman in Florida, Missouri, talking about the tight race, the battleground, the dead heat. So is tomorrow night's debate going to be the lubricant that unsticks all of this?
GWEN IFILL: David Broder, in the days since the last debate, what has changed if anything at all in this campaign with these two candidates?
GWEN IFILL: Tom, is there any way to know whether voters have made any connection between what David talked about as happening on the international scene and this election? |
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| Country not ready to decide | |||||||||||
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DAVID BROOKS: I might say that the argument that they resist making up their mind is a little charitable. We talked last time we were together about the detachment. And what struck me, one saw that this week in reference to the Cole. You know, we went to war a hundred years ago because someone sunk a ship of ours. This time it seems to me the way that was described, it was almost as if there was an airplane crash. People talked about the technical issues of the Cole and the size of the boat. People felt sorry for the victims. But it seemed to me almost an amazing absence of indignation, an absence of, let's get these guys, you know, let's really get fired up about this, which seemed to be the complacency which is of a peace or the complacency that has surrounded the whole race. GWEN IFILL: Dave Broder, I know you've been listening to what the two candidates have been saying, Gore and Bush, in the last few days. Have you noticed that they have seemed to both be playing more and more to their base? DAVID BRODER: Yes. And I think we may see that as a continuing trend, Gwen, because unless something dramatic happens tomorrow evening, that gives one or the other an advantage with the independent voters, this election may very well come down to the kind of old-fashioned tug-of-war, depending on which side can turn out more of its base vote. It could be an old-fashioned kind of an organization struggle in which the mass media, the debates, and the ads play a secondary role. And that would be a really remarkable transformation in our politics. GWEN IFILL: Go ahead, Tom.
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| How Clintonian he wants to be | |||||||||||
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TOM OLIPHANT: In the debate at one point I think he even referred to it somewhat disparagingly as this love fest, as if he wanted to mix it up. DAVID BROOKS: Tomorrow -- we ain't seen nothing yet, because this is a town hall meeting. And in town hall meetings, it's very hard to get tough and aggressive because the audience will actually groan and boo. GWEN IFILL: David Broder? DAVID BRODER: In the sound bite we just heard from Senator Lieberman, who after all is the current chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, the home of third-way modern Democrats -- that sounded to me like a speech that any Democratic candidate could have been making to a group of senior citizens any time in the last 68 years, saying, we're going to do more for you than they will, and that's why you ought to vote for us. GWEN IFILL: But David, which states are actually in play? We saw Lieberman in Florida. We saw Cheney in Missouri. Are there states coming in and out of play in the last weeks that tell us a little bit about how this campaign is being fought on the ground? DAVID BRODER: Well, I spent the last part of last week up in a tiny state of Maine, which has been in play, although I think now it's probably tipping in Vice President Gore's direction. But the battlefield is now expanding simply because neither side knows where they're going to get 270 electoral votes. And they're looking around almost to every possible place to put that combination together. GWEN IFILL: So, Tom, is there such a thing as momentum at this late date in the campaign that seems as if it's been stuck for so long, and can a town hall-type meeting debate tomorrow night do anything to kick it into overdrive? TOM OLIPHANT: Always the potential. The thing is I think the mistake we've been making since Labor Day is declaring its existence when in fact it hasn't appeared yet. It is entirely possible that once again one or the other of these two people could sort of dominate tomorrow night, but the public could take an entirely different lesson from it than what we attempt to impose on it. And I think after two big mistakes on our part, we ought to be more cognizant of that tomorrow night. GWEN IFILL: We ought to just shut up about it. What do you think about that, David? |
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| A humility lesson for us | |||||||||||
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DAVID BROOKS: Well, Tom's right, it should be a humility lesson for us, but I ain't learning. I have to think, you know, all the essentials are for Gore to walk away with this thing. The country is in relatively good shape. With the issues the Democrats -- the people seem to side with the Democrats. It has to be that people just are hunger, are looking for an excuse to vote against Gore personally. And if tomorrow's debate turns out to be a love fest, which I expect it to be, where they both do better than they've done the past two times, then it seems to me the net advantage goes to Bush because people just become more comfortable seeing him in the presidential arena.
DAVID BRODER: Well, Gwen, one of the constants in this campaign has been the finding in the polls that when you ask people, do you want to continue the way we've been going or do you want a new direction in Washington, country splits persistently almost 50/50. And as long as that basic question is unresolved, I think this election campaign is unresolved. GWEN IFILL: Do you agree? TOM OLIPHANT: Oh, absolutely. That's the whole point about what's not been happening in the last three months, is that it's been clear that the question is there and the answer is not forthcoming yet. GWEN IFILL: Do voters have to listen for these guys? Are they finding their voices? Is there something that some way they haven't punched through yet that they still can, or is it just too late for either of them to change? DAVID BROOKS: I'd go back to the word temperament. If you're for tax cuts or for some of the Gore health care plans, you've made up your mind. But people I think are relatively bad at judging intellectual balance between the two candidates but very, very good at seeing who is in touch with the times, who temperamentally meets... is the kind of guy they trust -- they think can be a good leader. And that's why these debates are really expositions of temperament. So in that sense, they matter. But not for what they're talking about, but what it reveals about them. GWEN IFILL: Briefly, you mentioned the word priority in your column, Tom. TOM OLIPHANT: Well, that makes it personal -- in other words, for the voter. What do you want to happen? What comes closest to what you want to happen? It's a complicated time. A lot of the issues are complicated. The White House is open. I've always felt, why is it any surprise that this decision is difficult for a lot of people. GWEN IFILL: Mr. Oliphant, Mr. Brooks and Mr. Broder, thank you all very much. |
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DAVID
BROOKS: I hope so. But one thinks probably not. It's sort of a mystical
process the way this ebbs and flows. Right now one gets the sense, though
it is a vague sense, that the feng shui is with Bush. The polls are
slightly in his favor. The confidence oozing out of his crowd is just
superior to the confidence oozing out of the Gore crowd. Meanwhile,
on the Gore camp, Gore makes it look hard running for president. Is
he too aggressive, is he not aggressive? Up on stage tomorrow night
we're going to look for how hard is he doing. And this isn't only a
superficial judgment of who's up and who's down; really it's a judgment
of temperament, which the American people really are, it seems to be
the key issue here. They talk about FDR having a second-class intellect,
but a first-class temperament -- that's really the issue here, and right
now Bush seems to be exuding positive vibes, positive temperament.
DAVID
BRODER: I don't think very much has changed. In a certain sense, Gwen,
Vice President Gore was helped by the fact that we had the tragedy on
our destroyer in Aden and then the outbreak of that terrible violence
in the Middle East because it really cut off most of the discussion
of what happened in the second debate very abruptly. I think if we had
been able to focus on that for two or tree more days, as happened after
the first debate, it would have worked to Governor Bush's advantage,
because I thought it, and most of the polls suggested, that he came
out of Winston-Salem with an advantage. But I think there's been so
much focus now on the international scene that I don't think this race
has moved very much in the last five or six days. 
TOM
OLIPHANT: No, not at all. In fact, you know, it's entirely possible,
just to pick a reverse hypothesis from what Dave Broder just said, that
the events in the Middle East perhaps prevented Vice President Gore,
who was the one who wanted to continue the debate after it occurred
in Wake Forest, raising some topics that he felt Governor Bush mis-stated
facts on, and that therefore he was blocked. But what keeps impressing
me is how this campaign resists the efforts of people like us to either
define pivotal events or define trends. My sense of the country right
now is of a place where... that isn't ready to decide this election
-- somewhat resents other people's attempts to discern trends that may
not be there, and quite frankly, what advantage appeared for Bush going
into the weekend, the only evidence we have since Sunday is of the lines
coming back together again. 
TOM
OLIPHANT: This weekend in particular, David, I noticed that Governor
Bush... it's something that he's advertising very heavily on, this theme
that he wants to empower individuals. Gore wants to empower government.
This is music to the ear of a conservative. I'm not quite sure how it
will play in a larger setting, but there is no question that is turnout
related. I think the Gore people have not yet gone to just the old-time
religion. I still think you can hear the new Democrat in Gore and Lieberman
as they -- as they campaign. But I think this is also a reflection on
the campaign, because if they're emphasizing turnout now, there's almost
an acknowledgment, you can't quite get people to say it, that this campaign
hasn't done very well by the American people. Every indication I'm aware
of is that the turnout may approach the abysmal numbers of 1996. And
generally speaking, we blame the candidates for that, not the voters.
DAVID
BROOKS: It's interesting the way Bush is trying to roll us back pre-Clinton,
pre-new Democrat, saying he's an old Democrat, I'm an old Republican,
I'm tax cuts, he's big spending; let's have the fight. And Gore, it
seems to me, has been ambivalent about how new Democrat he wants to
be, as he's been ambivalent about how Clintonian he wants to be. 
GWEN
IFILL: Dave Broder, a love fest at the debate -- attack on the stump?