The 1992 Campaign & Debates

An Interview with President Bush

An Interview with President Clinton

An Interview with Vice President
Quayle

An Interview with Admiral Stockdale

MR. LEHRER: Now, the final debate and all of that as seen by our team of Gergen, editor at large of U.S. News & World Report, and syndicated columnist Mark Shields. They are joined tonight by Linda Chavez, former executive director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights during the Reagan administration, now a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

David, 24 hours later, is there a conventional wisdom about what happened last night?

MR. GERGEN: I think they're the makings of conventional wisdom, Jim, certainly, widespread agreement that George Bush turned in his best performance of the campaign, indeed, I would argue the best performance since his acceptance speech four years ago in 1988 at the Republican National Convention. But at the same time a view is that while it certainly rescued his reputation, it did not do enough to turn the election around and, therefore --

MR. LEHRER: So if you were in that room in New York City, and then -- and Charlayne asked you -- you would be saying Clinton too?

MR. GERGEN: Well, I think -- the -- what we saw in that room is what I've seen around the country. I think Mark has also seen it repeatedly when he talked to groups around the country. Say, what's your preference, you get one indication. But you ask them what's the outcome, you've got almost universal belief. This is prior to the debate that Bill Clinton was going to win this. The election fundamentally has not changed. It remains today what it was before the debates, a referendum on George Bush's performance. Bill Clinton is winning this not because he's Bill Clinton but because he is not George Bush. He does not have the Bush record. That's still what's pulling the president down.

MR. LEHRER: Mark.

MR. SHIELDS: Jim, I think you have to look at the debates as a single ten-day period. You'll recall that the Bush people resisted first of all the single moderator debate, which I think the consensus holds was George Bush's best performance. They had little confidence in their man. And he did turn in his best performance. It was the performance he had to turn in in the first debate, rather than the third debate. In the first debate, you plant the seeds of doubt about your opponent. The next debate you spend telling how things are going to be different, how that second term's going -- he only did half the job last night. He did it well

But if you look at the 10 days as an entity, Bill Clinton started this with a 17-point lead or thereabouts, the USA Today, CNN using one, tracking polls every single day. He ends it with somewhere about a 19-point lead. Now if you look at it that way, and everything is frozen in a campaign during the debate period, I mean, that's all people will talk about --

MR. LEHRER: But people keep saying that the debates "freeze" the campaign, but aren't they a part -- how can they be separated from the campaign? Aren't they "the" campaign?

MR. SHIELDS: They take over the campaign. In other words, nothing else, nothing else happens during that period. What you do is you speculate. And it's kind of like going to the World Series. You speculate. You can talk about today's pitchers, and what a great game and look forward to tomorrow's.

MR. LEHRER: Baseball fans would say that's not freezing baseball; that is baseball.

MR. SHIELDS: It is baseball, but nothing else in the campaign is happening, and there is no other argument that you're making. There's no other endorsements that are happening or -- and interesting ideas being approached. So you've ended the 10 days Clinton in better shape, stronger shape than he was, and two weeks -- only two weeks away from the election. I think that it has to be looked at it that way.

MR. LEHRER: Do you look at it that way, Linda, that things did not change, all they did was firm up what was already in place?

MS. CHAVEZ: Well, I think that is -- is what ended up happening. I think it might have been very different if George Bush had turned in the performance that he did last night in the first debate. I think then he would have had much more conjecture about whether or not he could, in fact, pull it out. But I think given the fact that it was really in the last debate that we saw him aggressive, but we saw him articulating a point of view, defending his administration and raising questions about potential Bill Clinton administration that that I think was too late.

MR. LEHRER: You're Republican. What is the speculation within supporters of -- within the groups of people who support President Bush as to why it took this long for him to do what he did last night?

MS. CHAVEZ: Well, it's really been something that has plagued George Bush's presidency since day one. And I think a lot of it was a reaction to the Reagan administration and to the way in which President Reagan went over the heads of the media, talked directly to the people. There was really a sort of showcasing. And I think there are a lot of people who came into this administration very antagonistic towards the Reagan style. They didn't want to put George Bush in the East Room for his press conferences. They didn't hold them in prime time; they put him in the briefing room. He talked directly to the media, and then only -- the only thing that we saw was the little bit of sound bite that was on the evening news. It was a very different strategy than President Reagan's. It was clearly one that George Bush was more comfortable with, but I don't think it served him well over the three and a half years.

MR. LEHRER: I saw you nodding, David.

MR. GERGEN: Well, I do feel that there was a very strong effort, as Linda says, early on to get away from the scripting of Reagan. And Bush felt himself that it was too much scripting, and he was unhappy with all the handling he got during the '88 campaign. But I felt in recent months, Jim, one of the things that's been afflicting the Bush White House is a lack of confidence in the president, himself. I mean, to go to Mark's point, with a single moderator format, it turned out he was by far and away at his best. He -- you know when you keep telling a guy, you're not very good at this, it gets him down. I think he finally got some fire in him when he went out there and did it on his own. I think he's a much more effective speaker and can be a much more effective communicator when he has the self-confidence and knows what he's going for and drives for it. And that's why I thought he was better last night.

MR. LEHRER: One of the conventional wisdoms that I heard today was that all three of those men were seen at their best last night, that if the average voter turned on and wanted to see Bill Clinton as Bill Clinton at his best and George Bush at his best and Ross Perot at his best, that was, that was there. Do you agree with that?

MS. CHAVEZ: Well, I think the one who put in a slightly weaker performance was Bill Clinton. And I'm saying that not because I happen to disagree with a lot of what he said, but I think in terms of his performance in some of the other debates, I thought he was, Bill Clinton was at his best in Richmond, when he was playing the sort of Phil Donahue role. He was sitting on the stool, sort of comfortably, when he'd get up and he'd walk toward the audience. I thought he was much better in that forum. He sounded a little bit stiffer last night. He sounded a little bit too much like the "policy wonk," to use a phrase I hate. But I think that you're right. Ross Perot as, in fact, very, very strong last night. And it was surprising, even in listening to the focus group that we've just heard, was how many people really believe that Perot is going to surge and that there really is this uncapped support out there.

MR. LEHRER: Is that -- is that real, in your opinion, Mark? I mean, is Ross Perot somebody that somebody better start paying attention to now?

MR. SHIELDS: I think, I think, yes. I think Ross Perot -- there's an old rule about debates, Jim; they always help the underdog. And Ross Perot was the underdog most helped by these debates. He came - - this was a fellow who was in single digits a week ago, six, five or six points, incredibly negative scores, written off, derided by some people on this panel, and --

MR. LEHRER: On this very program.

MR. SHIELDS: On this very program, this very panel, yet he surged to the point where last night one survey showed a majority of Americans thought he was best on the deficit. A plurality thought he did best on the economy. If he set out to redeem his reputation and to somehow rewrite that cover of Newsweek -- "quitter" -- I think he did it last night. I think if he gets further scrutiny the next two weeks, I think what you'll hear emerge is the phrase used by a voter in Camden, New Jersey, and a focus group who have said Ross Perot -- he compared Ross Perot to Rosie Louise. Now for those who aren't sports fans, Rosie Louise, in a Boston marathon - -

MR. LEHRER: Quickly.

MR. SHIELDS: Boston marathon, the Boston marathon, Rosie Louise was a person who finished first, and she is -- the laurels were thrown out on her, and it turns out that Rosie Louise jumped in the race with a mile to go. I thought it was a perfect analogy. She avoided the heartbreak hills. He avoided all the scrutiny, all the hard work, all the heavy lifting, and is buying $60 million worth of television, shows up in the three debates, but he was good.

MR. GERGEN: Without pursuing that, we'll leave Rosie for a moment. Jim, I'm in a minority here in believing that while George Bush was excellent last night, I also thought Bill Clinton was first rate. I thought he helped himself a lot. I think over the course of these three debates, he showed enrichment of -- Linda was talking about this -- that he could connect the people emotionally, that he could reach them in their hearts. I felt last night he showed a competence, he showed a -- a mastery of the subject at hand and kept the focus on what he wanted to talk about, which is the economy. And what I think has helped him a lot in both of the last two debates is he's been willing to stand up, occasionally, for something he believes in, to take issue with people, to say here's what I believe, and then to flare. He flared a couple of times last night with the President. I think he helped himself. I thought he had a very good debate. And the polls show today. One of the things that's the trouble with the Republicans today is there are four national polls, and two of them the president won. One -- two of them Clinton won --

MR. LEHRER: Clinton won.

MR. GERGEN: -- one Perot won; one was a tie between Clinton and Perot. All four polls, all four polls found the president finishing third.

MR. LEHRER: Now, one analysis of that, that I heard somewhere, was that maybe people have tuned this thing out, that they -- that they'd already made their decision and there was a confirming exercise. Is that possible, Linda?

MS. CHAVEZ: Oh, I think that's very much what happened, and I think it's been easy to tune out George Bush for two reasons. One is I think the media has been very unkind to him. I think that filter has not been positive for George Bush. But secondly, he hasn't been as sharp and crisp in being able to present his vision. It's something that, again, has troubled him throughout the administration. And for that reason I think it's like background noise. He's not been really able to grab the attention.

MR. LEHRER: What do you predict is going to happen these next two weeks, Mark? I don't mean -- well, you can put it as specifically or generally --

MR. SHIELDS: The Toronto Blue Jays will win the World Series.... I do want to say that David Gergen was absolutely right, and it was confirmed last night when he said the big mistake the Bush people made was having Ross Perot in those. Last night Ross Perot proved it. If it had been a one-on-one last night with George Bush on top of his game, it might have been an interesting thing. It might have really had a dynamic effect on this campaign. But every time that Bush started to move on him, there was Perot taking a shot at Bush and bringing him right back down to earth. And Gergen was absolutely right on that. The next two weeks --

MR. LEHRER: But he's wrong on everything else.

MR. SHIELDS: No, no, no.

MR. GERGEN: I was wrong about Perot and Mark was right about Perot being good for the country to be in the debates. I thought he'd be a diversion. And I -- and I -- Mark said it would be better for the country. I think in the end it was better.

MR. LEHRER: Just because he's always there saying, hey --

MR. GERGEN: Yeah. Mark is right.

MR. SHIELDS: And is the campaign's conscience. I mean, I think he is this campaign's conscience.

MS. CHAVEZ: Not to mention he's the most entertaining --

MR. SHIELDS: He is. He is. That's right. He's the only that appeared to be having fun.

MR. LEHRER: But he keeps saying, you know, those other two guys, you know, I'm here and I'm different than both of those other two guys.

MS. CHAVEZ: But he's right about that. And I think that is why he's touching a cord with certain people in the electorate is he is the only one who has not been part of the Washington scene or the government scene. And I think there is a sense that you need someone like a Ross Perot to shake things up.

MR. GERGEN: I do -- coming back to your question, though -- I think that Bush in the next two weeks --

MR. LEHRER: Which Mark is about to answer.

MR. SHIELDS: What are you going to get, some Lawrence Welk music here, Jim?

MR. LEHRER: All right. Excuse me, David. Mark gets to answer the question first, and if there's any time left, then you can answer it.

MR. SHIELDS: No. I think that Bill Clinton has a chance, a good chance, to help his presidency, if there is to be one, start off on the right foot. Last night he twice took a shot at the Congress gratuitously, okay, saying, well, the Congress -- Bush had requested greater appropriations than the Congress did, and it was a kind of a "ha ha." For Bill Clinton to be a successful president, he has to first be, as successful presidents have always been, a leader, and strong leader of an undivided party. He's got to start out right now, the next two weeks, saying I want accountability, I want responsibility.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Shields, your time is up. Mr. --

MR. GERGEN: What was that --

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Gergen, final few seconds.

MR. GERGEN: The president has a serious problem now because Bill Clinton for the next two weeks is going to be in control of environments. Everything's going to be controlled. It's very, very hard to take the debate away from him now. Perhaps he can do it. I think the president helped himself. He'll get big crowds, friendly crowds, good crowds. Maybe we'll see the race tighten up, but it's a tough one for the president now.

MR. LEHRER: Linda, gentlemen, thank you.