OPINION: Bush Wins Round One On Character Issue

Better Writing And Delivery Give Texas Governor The Match

Maria Buckley, TheBostonChannel Staff Writer
October 4, 2000, 4:24 p.m. EDT

BOSTON -- With anywhere from 65 to 90 million viewers watching and evaluating not only their words on the issues, but their performances as well, Al Gore and George W. Bush each made masterful attempts Tuesday night at defining their opponent. Doing that is step one in any successful political campaign.

The goal, of course, is to paint your adversary in the most unflattering light possible for the voters. Political strategists will testify: The degree to which one candidate does this better than the other determines his or her ultimate success at the polls.

Clearly, in this first debate, Bush drew first blood. Gore, in his characteristically wooden style, squandered his opening statement by reciting a well-versed grocery list of what he would do for voters (balance the budget, pay down the national debt). But "Dubbya" came out swinging with velvet gloves on, managing in a down-to-earth manner to characterize Gore as a free-spending Democrat who will increase the federal bureacracy in Washington on the backs of "the people who pay the bills."

"His (Social Security) plan," Bush said, "will create 20,000 new bureaucrats. In other words, it empowers Washington. And tonight you're going to hear that my passion and my vision is to empower Americans to be able to make decisions for themselves in their own lives."

For many middle Americans, those are Reagan-era words, which somehow sounded fresh again after years of President Clinton's patented insincerity. After years of the Elvis treatment from the White House, voters are now being treated to an interesting hybrid of George Bush Sr.'s elegant, prep-school style combined with a Texas good-old-boy persona. It's original. That counts with voters.

Bush's message, and Gore's, were time-worn. No radical proposals here. One is clearly an old-fashioned Democrat; one is clearly a Republican, with all that those labels entail. One favors big government; one says he wants less. One says he wants tax cuts; the other says such cuts will only benefit the wealthy. It could have been a debate from 1930, 1945 or 1960.

Guess Who Did His Homework?

The surprise was that, while Gore has been touted in recent months as a fierce debater with a formidable command of policy, probably none of the pundits anticipated that it would be Bush who was more in control of his facts and figures, or that it would be Bush who had the better material and the better delivery.

While Gore fell back more than once on well-rehearsed catch-phrases (how many times did he talk about that Social Security lockbox?), the Texas governor used his opportunity to go on the offensive. That was particularly true when it came to this all-important election-year issue: character.

When asked what made him different from Gore, Bush deftly used a backhanded compliment to wound where Gore is most vulnerable -- pointing to Gore's fund-raising scandals and alluding to other morasses of the Clinton White House.

"Well, (Gore) loves his wife, and I appreciate that a lot, and I love mine," Bush said. "And the man loves his family a lot, and I appreciate that because I love my family. I think the thing that discouraged me about the Vice President was uttering those famous words, 'no controlling legal authority.' I felt like there needed to be a better sense of responsibility of what was going on in the White House."

Pretty clear and to the point. Few Americans would have said it any differently. Bush has a good speech writer -- who then went one better.

'Don't Let Me Down'

"We need to have a new look about how we conduct ourselves in office. There's a huge trust. I see it all the time when people come up to me and say, 'I don't want you to let me down again.' And we can do better than the past administration has done. It's time for a fresh start. It's time for a new look. It's time for a fresh start after a season of cynicism," he said.

The delivery was sincere -- as good as presidential candidates get. In contrast, Gore's rebuttal seemed feeble, almost whiny.

"Well, I think we ought to attack our country's problems, not attack each other," Gore said. "I want to spend my time making this country even better than it is, not trying to make you out to be a bad person. You may want to focus on scandals; I want to focus on results."

As would anyone in Gore's place. The issue of character counts for a great deal in American politics. As the pundits have said many times over, voters decide based on who they like, not necessarily on the issues.

--Maria Buckley is managing editor of TheBostonChannel.com.

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