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By their quirks ye shall know them
By Margaret Carlson
January 31, 2000
Web posted at: 3:38 p.m. EST (2038 GMT)
In last week's debate, Al Gore reissued his challenge to Bill
Bradley to swear off those empty 30-second ads in favor of
twice-weekly debates. Twice weekly? Who does Gore think he is,
the host of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The Democratic duo's
last appearance--with its "No, I didn't," "Oh, yes, you did" tone,
interspersed with stock lines from speeches--left me wondering
whether the debates haven't reached the point of diminishing
returns. Long idealized as the noblest form of political
discourse, debates are today about as overproduced,
overprogrammed and devoid of meaning as the much reviled ads. I
stopped counting the canned phrases when I hit 26.
On the Republican side, some critics say the problem is too many
candidates. But there would be no spontaneity without the
understaffed challengers, from Alan Keyes' keening against the
"howling moral void" to Orrin Hatch's cracking wise about how he
couldn't lift Steve Forbes' wallet. Just as Lucy and Desi needed
the Mertzes, the Democrats could use a foil or two onstage.
Nowadays, consultants even vet the campaign music: Bush's squad
recently killed Cat's in the Cradle after realizing the lyrics
were about a son who grows up to be just like his remote father.
To extract a fresh thought, restive reporters will try
anything--surprise, confrontation, rudeness. Lots of luck. It
would take nothing short of sodium pentothal delivered at the
podium to get Bush to clear up his conflicting statements on
abortion. Tell us--do you really mean it when you say you will
keep the Republican platform, which would ban all abortions? Are
you saying farewell to soccer moms? And no one is more scripted
than Forbes. I'm not saying his vacant stare is reminiscent of
the Manchurian Candidate. But I wouldn't risk flashing the Queen
of Diamonds at him on the campaign trail.
In an effort to crack the candidate's defenses, the Associated
Press sent out a whimsical questionnaire asking each candidate to
name a few of his favorite things. Keyes refused to answer any
questions at all. Too busy filling the moral void, perhaps.
Bradley dodged a few. Some replies seemed focus grouped. Asked to
list the last book he had read, Donald Trump named A History of
the English Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill. I want to be
around for the pop quiz on Chapters 1 through 3. Pat Buchanan--he
of the recent soft-on-Hitler p.r. crisis--blithely offered up that
he's reading Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor
and that his first car was a German DKW, known as Das Kleine
Wunder. Not a trace of handler input there.
Although Bradley had resisted revealing his favorite book, he
said in the debate that he liked Joseph Conrad's Victory and even
speed-quoted a section. He cautioned that it told us nothing
about him other than that he had read the book.
Au contraire, Professor Bradley. So it's old Joe you've been
channeling this campaign? Your reluctant venture into the belly
of the political beast is a journey into Conrad's heart of
darkness. You can bet none of the others are doing such heavy
lifting. Bush, who likes Robert Parker mysteries, says he last
read a rip-roaring disaster tale, Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson.
Now that sounds a lot more like Bush than the Dean Acheson
biography he claimed to be reading and was hard-pressed to
summarize.
Lots of things fit. Bradley, the thinker, likes long drives on
his day off, while Gore, the fighter, prefers water skiing.
Bradley picked the sugar-free, protein-laden cashew as his snack
of choice, while his colleagues admitted to mainlining cupcakes
and Three Musketeers bars. Gore, the Harvard-educated, alpha male
in training, named Shakespeare in Love as his favorite movie,
while Hatch chose Simon Birch, a peculiar film about a dwarf who
believes God selected him for a heroic mission. In another life,
Hatch says, he would like to be in the CIA. It may be just as
well we lost him.
Stranded on a desert island, Bush would take his fishing rod and
a Bible, while McCain hopes for a satellite dish, perhaps because
he had to rely on memory to entertain his fellow prisoners of war
with narrations of Stalag 17 and One Eyed Jacks.
These tiny glimpses are tantalizing. But how do we get a deeper
look, induce any of these Clockwork Oranges to come unsprung
enough to show a little of their own lives before we entrust one
of them with the life of a nation? Bradley boasts he's
comfortable in his own skin, but how would we know, since he
doesn't let us get under it? Does Gore of the earth tones even
dress himself? As lame as the debates are, don't expect to see
Bush mixing it up with Forbes and Keyes should he dispense with
McCain. He'll revive his earlier excuse and suddenly have a lot
of awards ceremonies to attend with his wife. He temporarily shut
down press conferences after a reporter got too close to the
bone. Voters have learned the hard way that character matters,
that you need to know who someone is much more than you need to
know what his tax plan entails. So candidates, unhand yourselves.
We hardly know you.
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