POLITICAL WRAP

September 8, 2000
		Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot discuss the debate about the debates and GOP concerns about the Bush presidential campaign.

Online Special: 2000 Democratic Convention 2000 Republican Convention Election 2000 Sept. 5, 2000: The candidates on prescription drug benefits. Sept. 4, 2000: Debating the debates. Sept. 1, 2000: Religion and politics. Aug. 30, 2000: Reform Party candidate John Hagelin Aug. 15, 2000: Who are the Democrats of 2000? Aug. 15, 2000: Hollywood and Senator Joe Lieberman face off. Aug. 15, 2000: Former Vice President Walter Mondale talks about the race. Aug. 14, 2000: Former President Jimmy Carter discusses Gore and the Democrats. Aug. 11, 2000: Sen. Joe Lieberman discusses his nomination, religion and the campaign. Aug. 11, 2000: Examining Gore's economic plan.. Aug. 8, 2000: An historic choice. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Politics and Campaigns and Election 2000.	JIM LEHRER: Shields and Gigot, syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot.
	The debate about the debates
	First the debate about the debates, Mark. Who's won or who's winning? MARK SHIELDS: I think it's over. I think George Bush lost. He's agreed to - late this afternoon -- the Bush campaign called the presidential debate commission and said they would meet next week to sort it out. JIM LEHRER: And what happened? PAUL GIGOT: Well, I think… I hate to admit it, Mark has this one pegged. The Bush campaign wanted to shift the issue... use the debate about debates to shift the issue back to credibility and character on Gore. Gore rehabilitated himself partly through the convention. They wanted to turn the issue back on that -- too clever by half. They have a point about... they also wanted to make the debates -- get a negotiating position to make the debates less scripted. Bush has a point about that. But it was very hard for that message to break through what the Gore pounding saying "you want to avoid debates." And George W. Bush is not the incumbent. He's no longer the front-runner. He's a challenger who has to make an argument to change direction. To do that, you have to get in every possible forum you can and you have to make the case. And that means debates. JIM LEHRER: Bad miscalculation by the Bush campaign? MARK SHIELDS: I think it was, Jim. I think it's understandable. The debates... Richard Nixon was the last American challenger to refuse to debate. Everybody said... George W. Bush, Sr. six times he debated on this arrangement. Ronald Reagan as the incumbent President with a big lead went out and did it and what has come almost to constitute is a job interview. It's the only time these two guys stand unscripted without their media advisors in their ear and all the rest of it; they can spend millions of dollars to make their case. But this is the time they have to stand there and kind of show whether they have poise, whether they can handle pressure, whether they have a sense of humor, their psyches, and all the rest of it. And that's what it's come to be. And I think it was a mistake on Bush's part. Why was it understandable? It's understandable because the point Paul made. For all year long Al Gore had been stuck on his personal ratings favorable-unfavorable in the low mid-30s. I mean, Democratic pollsters candidly told me, the Democratic polls said he couldn't win with these kind of personal numbers. He has transformed himself from that mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, from the kiss at the convention... from that point forward, Jim, he has changed the perception of him. He, right now, is seen as honest and trustworthy as George Bush is. So what the Bush folks are trying to do through the debates in their spot last week is remind people why they didn't used to like Al Gore. Remember that guy you didn't like? Let me tell you why you didn't like him. Now they do like him or they have moved beyond that. That was the mistake the Bush folks made. JIM LEHRER: And so there's going to be debates. Do you think there will be any residue harm...? PAUL GIGOT: No. It's mostly inside baseball. I just think it was a lost opportunity for Bush. He gave a very good speech this week on prescription drugs on Tuesday -- tried to sell it, half the time was spent talking about the debates.
	The Bush campaign
	JIM LEHRER: Well, look, there has been much written this week, Paul about the Bush campaign, people jumping ship and he has even commented on it. He saw all the Washington part of the Republican Party. PAUL GIGOT: He was right about that. JIM LEHRER: What else was he right or wrong about? Is there anything right or wrong going on in the Bush campaign or is this all Gore doing things right, rather than Bush doing things wrong? Or what? PAUL GIGOT: The Bush campaign has to do some reconsideration. I mean they made the argument in their convention that the reason... the argument for change was character and no Clinton third term -- character and leadership. Gore paid them the ultimate compliment that that was working when he named Joe Lieberman as his vice president. Lieberman has had this kind of remarkable sanforizing effect. It is like they had sent Al Gore to the dry cleaner. He is no longer tainted with Clinton. People can't remember the Buddhist temple. They can't remember all this stuff. So we have a dead even race. The lead has evaporated. What Bush has to do somehow is broaden the argument for change, make it bigger or else find some way to make the character argument work again. I think that's going to be, by itself, not enough for Bush. So they're thinking how can we broaden the case for change, how do we get back on the offense. And they spent two or three weeks, frankly, stumbling to find that way back. JIM LEHRER: What is your reading of what happened? MARK SHIELDS: I think the Gore campaign deserves enormous credit -- I really do. Paul talks about the convention. I mean from the convention forward after Bill Clinton's speech on Monday night, Jim, everything that Al Gore did was about the future. It's all been about the future. I mean, he has never talked back, he's never said didn't we have a great eight years, we deserve another term or whatever else; let's not interrupt this. It's all been future. I think what he has been able to do... I mean, he has always led on experience and knowledge. But what has emerged in the last three and a half, four weeks is he has is seen as having a clearer stand on the issues. He's seen as not only as a uniter rather than a divider. I mean, not that Bush has stumbled badly. I mean, Bush is still seen as a strong leader, as the agent of change. They like his personality. It isn't like George Bush is in trouble. Say I to my brother and sister pundits "whoa" because four weeks ago we were doing premature postmortems on the failed Gore campaign. I think it's a little too early to write off or work on George Bush's concession speech. This is a race very much up for grabs.
	The issues debate
	The issues terrain is not friendly to George Bush. Whether it's patients' bill of rights - whether it's Medicare - whether it's Social Security - this week Paul talked about being stepped on his own story - JIM LEHRER: Prescription drugs. MARK SHIELDS: -- prescription drugs. Jim, Bill Clinton in 1995 said the era of big government is over. Well, we just had a major entitlement offered by the Republican challenger, and it's my entitlement is bigger than your entitlement is Gore's answer. This is a terrain where a conservative, whether he is compassionate or not, probably ought not to be playing. PAUL GIGOT: No, I disagree with that. If he lets Al Gore get away with saying here's a free lunch, here's a new entitlement, it costs you nothing, it's terrific. He's going to lose the election because people are going to say, yeah, I would like a free lunch. Everyone likes a free lunch. Seniors want free drugs. I mean, Bush has to sigh this is not free. This is what going to cost you $600 in premiums a year, it's going to be government controlled. I've got a better idea. I've got a plan. But my idea is better. Remind people of the fact that they didn't like the catastrophic health care plan of the late 80s. In fact, it was the first entitlement ever repealed because seniors decided they had to pay for it. JIM LEHRER: You think that Bush should now... he has an opportunity to become the issue man that Gore used to be in this campaign? PAUL GIGOT: I don't think he can fall for the line which I think is a clever Gore spin on it. If it's an issues election, Gore wins; if it's personality, Bush wins. JIM LEHRER: Right. MARK SHIELDS: If it's an issues election -- Gore has rehabilitated himself personally enough that now he has credibility on issues. Bush has to go back to him and remind people -- he can do what he did after New Hampshire. He fought McCain among Republican voters on the issues, social, economic, and he prevailed. Now he has to do something like that now. It is not as if Bush is struggling for an agenda. He's put together one the last year: Social Security, Medicare reform, education. Remind people why they liked him two months ago. JIM LEHRER: Do both of you, starting with you, Paul, do these polls sound right to you to have this race in a dead heat right now? Do these polls matter? Are the polls starting to matter? PAUL GIGOT: I think they definitely matter. There's no question about it in my mind. I think we have a very even race and either side could win. The good news for George W. Bush is that despite this incredible economy, despite peace and prosperity, placid times, there's still a good portion of the country that wants a change. So there is fertile terrain out there. The bad news for him is that Gore has rehabilitated himself, in part, as a candidate and his former strategy that you can do it... denying Clinton a third term, that character is going to prevail -- that's not going to work. Bush has to take the debate to Gore on the issues and on contrast; get an edge on some of these issues so that he can't do what Mark thinks he might be able to do, which is dominate the debate on Social Security, education, health care. MARK SHIELDS: Well, Jim, first of all, on the issues Paul has mentioned, Gore has now moved ahead on every measurement. I mean, education he has opened up a double-digit lead as the candidate who is better. JIM LEHRER: When the people are asked... MARK SHIELDS: Yeah, who would be better on Social Security, who would be better on the medical care system, on education, Gore has established a lead in all of these areas. And this is a problem for Bush because the two issues, the signature issues of this campaign, really haven't had traction with the electorate. That's the tax cut, the across-the-board tax cut and his defense; and the one big stumble he had... JIM LEHRER: You mean... The Clinton folks have allowed the military to diminish, et cetera. MARK SHIELDS: Exactly. That was the one the one stumble. The two divisions weren't ready and he had to backpedal. And the charge at his acceptance speech at the Philadelphia convention and then they had to back pedal and they were attacked by Bill Cohen even, the Republican Secretary of Defense, said that's not true. It was true at one point. There are not a lot of arrows in the quiver to choose from. The polls are important in one very important respect. I think Tom Mann, the Brookings scholar at the Brookings Institution made this point we. He said they influence press coverage. George Bush was sailing along with a substantial lead and people said a brilliant campaign; it's a well-disciplined campaign -- no mistakes, leak-proof. Now Al Gore is ahead, what's the charge in the press? That damn Bush campaign, it's parochial, it's provincial, they don't have any graybeards. They don't talk to anybody but themselves. That really does shape the coverage. PAUL GIGOT: Very good news for Bush in that sense that it's a dead heat and he is not four or five behind because the obituaries would all be - are already being written and instead so they're at least going to be able to get their licks in and cover. JIM LEHRER: Speaking of obituaries, we're through. Thank you both.