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TalkBack Live

What Do the American People Want to Hear the Presidential Candidates Say?

Aired October 3, 2000 - 3:00 p.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GERALD FORD, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONALD REAGAN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Are you better off than you were four years ago?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REAGAN: I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERNARD SHAW, CNN ANCHOR: Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?

GOV. MICHAEL DUKAKIS (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No, I don't, Bernard, and I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSS PEROT (REF), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Go into Congress some time when they're working on this kind of legislation when the lobbyists are running up and down the halls. Wear your safety toe shoes when you go. (END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM J. CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I can only tell you that I don't think Senator Dole is too old to be president. It's the -- the age of his ideas that I question.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOBBIE BATTISTA, HOST: It's been 40 years since America's first televised presidential debate. There is no doubt they have made an impact on elections ever since. But the stakes may be greater than ever for the one tonight. The top contenders are running neck-and- neck in opinion polls. We've heard them discuss the issues. But what do you really want to hear them say?

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to TALKBACK LIVE.

Well, exactly how much is at stake in tonight's first presidential debate? Could it win an election or could it matter not a wit?

First, let's learn about the rules of the face-off and how the two candidates have been preparing for this event. For that, we go to the debate site in Boston and CNN senior political correspondent Candy Crowley.

Candy, good to see you.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Bobbie, nice to see you.

BATTISTA: With the two candidates heading into this first debate pretty much neck-and-neck, how pivotal do the analysts feel this first debate will be?

CROWLEY: Well, I think you pretty much summed it up. It'll either be really pivotal or it won't move the polls at all. I mean, you know, you have the opportunity here for both candidates to jump in and kick their campaign into forward motion. You know, there could be a line. Most of those things you played in the outside of this show were one-liners that we remember from the debates. It wasn't a specific policy talk. It was something that got to the crux of what was going on in the campaign. That's certainly there.

But what is also there is that these two candidates, who have rehearsed quite a bit, could in fact come out with a draw, and then we'll be talking at the same time next week.

BATTISTA: What kind of preparations have they made? We know they've been squirreled away for the last month practicing, you know, mock debates, cramming, whatever. Is there really anything left to do at this point?

CROWLEY: Relax and be yourself.

(LAUGHTER)

It's -- you know, it always -- it tickles me because they just spend, you know, particularly this past weekend with the vice president in Florida, George Bush in -- at his ranch in Crawford, where they pepper them with questions and they make sure, you know, if your candidate says this and you say that. And they -- Bush did 90 minutes real-time debate performance with his debating partner. And then with all of the advisers and everything, and they tell them do this, don't do that, and then they say, OK, relax and be yourself.

So we're at the relax-and-be-yourself stage. Both candidates in town or about to arrive in town, as Gore's case. And both of them say they will exercise a little, maybe they'll take a nap, and you know, pretty much they've been about as prepared as they're going to be at this point.

BATTISTA: And what about the conditions for the debate itself up there at the University of Massachusetts? I hear there were some debates about that even.

CROWLEY: Well, I can tell you firsthand that you can hang meat in the debate room. It is freezing in there.

(LAUGHTER)

It's been -- one of the things that really did come up is how cold should it be in that room. They settled on 65 degrees. It literally feels more like 50. I suspect when they get the 900 people in there, that they will, in fact, hopefully heat up a little bit.

Beyond that, there was discussion about would there be opening statements. Answer, no. Would there be time for the two candidates to exchange? In other words, not just have what do you say here, what do you say there, but OK, now, you two talk to each other. There will be that, about 3 1/2 minute period after each questions where the two candidates can talk to each other.

So, you know, some of the -- some of that was -- has all been decided. It's a very precise forum who will do what when. Al Gore wins the coin toss, he will give the first answer to the first question, George Bush will give the first closing statement.

BATTISTA: So this is the stiffer format, if you will, the more -- the stricter format tonight, where the moderator really asks both of the questions. And you just told us that they will be able to speak to each other. That -- I did not know that tonight.

CROWLEY: Yes, it is, you know, for a brief period of time on the question at hand. It was something that the Bush campaign, as you know, felt very strongly about. They think that the governor is much better in the give-and-take rather than the standing behind the podium, which they see as just a time to kind of give your canned campaign speech.

The stiffer the venue is for George Bush, really the worse he tends to do. He is a more laid-back fellow. The vice president is a little more formal. He tends to excel at debates. So the Bush campaign wanted to get something in there which really would show how the two interact with one another, and they did get this 3 1/2 minutes in there.

BATTISTA: And lastly here, I guess, do you think that they are thinking more about actually winning tonight or just about not losing?

CROWLEY: Not losing is key. You know, because when you look -- when you look back over the course of historical debates, it really isn't so much that someone just went in there and just, wow, said a line, or you know, talked about a policy that really drove things. It was, you know, a major mistake or as you saw with President Ford and saying that Poland wasn't under communist influence. That was, you know, a huge mistake. So it wasn't that his opponent won, it was that Gore -- sorry -- Ford lost.

So yes, definitely the bottom line here is don't lose the debate. But more than that, you know, this is -- this is such a mix of policy and personality, and personality not meant in any kind of light form, because what both candidates know is that in addition to what they are saying, they have to exude something into those living rooms which says, "Here's the kind of leader I'm going to be."

So, you know, you never know what it's going to be. Is it going to be George Bush, the father, looking at his watch, you know, impatiently waiting for the debates to be over? -- which, by the way, George Bush's son says he will not look at his watch. So they learn a thing or two over the years.

But the fact of the matter is that this is as much about what they exude into those living rooms as about what they say. So you know, it's body language, and is this a leader, is this a guy I want to have in the Oval Office for the next four years? A whole host of things come to play in this evening.

BATTISTA: And we're going to be dissecting that even more for the rest of this hour.

Candy Crowley, thanks very much for bringing us up-to-date. By the way, as we're talking to Candy, we're looking at live pictures from Boston now. This is Vice President Gore's plane landing in Boston in preparation for the debate tonight. We saw a few family members and friends or aides getting off the plane there.

A "Newsweek" poll recently found that 55 percent of voters are likely to watch all or part of the debate tonight, 12 percent not at all likely.

Allan Lichtman joins us now from Washington. He is chairman of the history department at American University and has been a debate coach at Brandeis and Harvard universities.

Allan, good to see you.

ALLAN LICHTMAN, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Same here.

BATTISTA: You don't think that this race is as close as the polls would have us believe?

LICHTMAN: No, I really don't, and I think, quite frankly, sports metaphor like the horse race have utterly corrupted our view of politics. Elections are not horse races in which candidates surge ahead or fall behind based on the day-to-day events of the campaign. Rather, the American people are a lot smarter than that.

Essentially, elections are referenda by the American people on the record of the party in power. The American people wisely ask the pragmatic question, "Do you want to continue the administration that's held office for the past four years or do you want to turn them out?"

And by a very narrow margin, based on the record, the fundamentals of this election favor the incumbent Democrats: Namely, the economy, of course, has been very strong. There's no foreign threat. There's been no great foreign policy disaster, like the Iran hostage crisis that so bedeviled Jimmy Carter. The country is tranquil at home. The incumbent party is united.

Those are the kinds of circumstances under which a pragmatical electorate returns the party in power to the White House.

On the other hand, I said it's a narrow balance because there are countervailing factors. There are, of course, the scandals of which the Republicans have sought to make a great deal. There is the fact that the Clinton administration has not gotten its domestic agenda through the Congress. And there's a lack of a great foreign policy triumph like winning the Cold War.

So there are openings for Republicans here even though the fundamentals narrowly favor the Democrats.

Therefore, this debate is not a horse race, it's not a boxing match. It's an attempt by Al Gore to persuade us to continue the direction in which we are going and an attempt by George Bush to persuade us to change,. And that is going to be very much influenced by the context of the times and by how the American people view their country.

BATTISTA: OK, having said all that, then, what -- what do the candidates have working for and against themselves tonight? In other words, let's start with George Bush.

LICHTMAN: Sure. The pressure really is, in my view, on George Bush, despite the very tight polls. As I said, he's got to do something that's very hard to do throughout the history of American politics: persuade voters to change in a time of peace and prosperity. Therefore, in my view, George Bush can't just perform competently; he needs to shake things up. He needs to be bold, imaginative, do something different.

Here's my advice to George Bush: Come out of this debate, tell us some of your Cabinet members, starting perhaps with Mr. Colin Powell as secretary of state and challenge Al Gore to do the same. Say, here's my team, Al, where's your team? It's a high-risk, it's never been done before, but I think that's what George W. has to do. Al Gore, on the other hand, because he has the stronger hand, need not take the debate in the same way to George W. Bush. Basically, what he has to do is remind us of the record, and then give us his vision for the next four years.

Above all, I think the American people are looking for one thing in a leader, and I call that idealism without illusions. They're looking for a leader to inspire them, to get them to think beyond their daily matters and daily toils, but at the same time, they want a leader who's pragmatic and can get things done. If Al Gore can convince voters of that, while at the same time without being too heavy-handed, take apart some of the policy proposals of George Bush, he'll be doing very well.

The big pitfalls for them: Al Gore does not want to seem like the school, high-school bully and George Bush doesn't want to seem like Bambi lost in the woods.

BATTISTA: OK, this is a good point to take a break, I think. And as we do, get in now on our online viewer vote. Today's question is: "Are you planning on watching the debate tonight?" We'll check the results a bit later on in the hour.

And we'll continue here with Allan Lichtman right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: We are cutting back in here to show you live pictures now of Vice President Al Gore as he arrives in Boston for tonight's debate. And we'll just continue here with Dr. Lichtman. I don't think we're going to go back to the commercials.

So as we watch these live pictures, Allan, let me read a couple of e-mails that have come in here.

A couple of students at SUNY, SUNY at Stony Brook, have e-mailed us, saying: "This is the first election in which I am allowed to participate, but the truth is I really don't want to. I know more about their personal lives than I do their platforms."

And Josito says: "I'm 22 and became an American citizen a month ago. I haven't heard much about the issues that concern me, such as drugs, abortion, immigration and race. I'm ready to listen and ready to vote. I hope they speak to me tonight."

Will they speak to the voter tonight?

LICHTMAN: I sure hope so. Let me respond to the students. I think they raise an important point, and again it illustrates what I said about getting rid of the horse race metaphor.

This debate is important because, voter -- it is the focal point of the campaign. It's the big focal point from the end of the conventions to the election itself. And what voters can get out of this, forgetting about the horse race, is they can learn a lot about, as the students indicated, the issues on which these guys are running, their priorities, and what they are going to be like as president, and as I've stressed, their vision for the country: what can they do to inspire us beyond ourselves.

Remember, one of these guys is going to be the next president of the United States, and this may be the best chance we get to see how that person is going to function as president. There could be no doubt, after the famous 1980 debate, that Ronald Reagan was going to be a very different kind of president than Jimmy Carter was and was going to take the nation in a very different direction. Likewise, the kind of president that John Kennedy was going to be -- quite aggressive in foreign policy, trying to move the nation forward and challenge the Soviet Union in new ways -- was quite evident in the debate.

So regardless of the effect on the horse race, the American people can watch because they can learn a great deal about the direction of our country over next several years.

BATTISTA: Let me bring someone else into the conversation now to talk a little bit more about style. Joining us is Mark Mazzarella, co-author of "Reading People: How to Understand People and Predict Their Behavior Anytime, Anyplace."

Mark, nice to see you.

MARK MAZZARELLA, CO-AUTHOR, "READING PEOPLE": Well, it's nice to be here. Thanks.

BATTISTA: What are you going to be looking for tonight? What do these candidates have to do in order to communicate with the voter?

MAZZARELLA: Well, I think that what they have to do is they have to be likable. Likability is as important, actually more important, than anything else, and it influences how people will receive their more formal message.

So first and foremost, I think they have to show themselves to be honest, to be friendly, to be humble, to be capable, certainly, but generally just likable. They have to be an attractive speaker to be understood and to be influential.

BATTISTA: Well, for example, how does George Bush do that? How does he come off as affable and charming, which is clearly one of his attributes, but not go so far as to come as, you know, the carefree frat boy?

MAZZARELLA: Well, his wit is obviously one of his strong points, incredible wit. And when he shows that, I think he is very, very likable. I think that what he has to watch is when he gets in the attack mode, he becomes much less likable.

He's not a real comfortable person expressing his emotions. He has that sort of half-smile that has been criticized as being a sneer. He really doesn't express his emotions very clearly, except his wit. And I'd play on that if I were him. I would be very careful not to attack because he tends to look a little bit sour and just nasty, vicious. And I think he's got to watch out for that.

BATTISTA: And you know what, that can also be Al Gore's problem. I mean, he can sometimes come off as too aggressive, a bit too arrogant, or condescending even. So how does he walk the line between that and appearing as if he is in command?

MAZZARELLA: Well, Al Gore is much more expressive. He smiles very freely, very broadly. He uses much more body language to express himself. He's more comfortable with being expressive. I think that what he has to be careful, though, is sometimes he can look insincere. He can look too much like he's playing the role. And I think he may need to actually tone down a little bit and make sure he looks professional, he looks very capable and confident, he shows the role of the leader and not the role of somebody who's just out there sniping at somebody else.

BATTISTA: Let me take a question from Mark. Go ahead, Mark.

MARK: Is 90 minutes long enough to make this sort of judgment given the importance of this event?

MAZZARELLA: Well, I think the 90 minutes is going to be more than enough. In fact, I think that this will, the judgments will start being formed immediately. Research certainly demonstrates that, that first impressions truly do become lasting impressions. And in the first five or 10 minutes of this debate, the audience will form an impression of these two candidates. And once that impression is formed, they will tend to look and see whatever it does that conforms to those impressions.

So if you don't grasp the audience in that first five or 10 minutes, if you turn them off, you will not get them back, no matter how well you perform in the balance of the 90 minutes. So it's -- if this is a 15-minute debate, up-front is going to be what makes the difference.

BATTISTA: I think that's -- yes, go ahead, Allan.

LICHTMAN: I think that's really sad, unfortunately. I'm not against likability. I'm not against impression. But after all, we are picking the next president of United States. How far have we gone in this instant sound-bite culture that we can do it in five or 10 minutes? Lincoln and Douglas debated for hours and hours upon end, day after day at the grassroots in front of thousands of people, really getting at the issues. Go back to the Kennedy-Nixon debates and see how long their answers were, how deeply they went into the issues.

I've got a lot more faith...

BATTISTA: I believe...

LICHTMAN: ... in the American people to hold the 90 minutes... BATTISTA: I'm not sure...

LICHTMAN: ... and review their vision.

BATTISTA: I was just going to say I think that's probably asking a lot of the American people because I'm not sure their attention span...

LICHTMAN: Ninety minutes is not asking too much.

BATTISTA: I know.

LICHTMAN: Maybe 10 hours like Lincoln and Douglas did.

BATTISTA: I know. Let's see what -- how the ratings bare out here on three of these 90-minute debates, but it does seem that most people have an average attention span of 20 minutes these days before they do start to wander. So I also see what Mark is saying in terms of, you know, tonight in particular being a night where, you know, you're going to make your mark in terms of first impressions. And what...

LICHTMAN: I don't disagree that first impressions are important.

BATTISTA: You know, what is wrong with that? What's wrong with that?

LICHTMAN: There's nothing wrong with that, but we need more than that. This is the leadership...

BATTISTA: Yes, I totally agree with you, but also -- don't we also want our leader to be likable and to be trustworthy and to be some of those things that we're all looking for tonight? Isn't that a good thing?

LICHTMAN: You cannot tell whether a person is trustworthy in five or 10 minutes. You might get a likability impression, but, by golly, some of our greatest presidents were not all that likable. Abe Lincoln, his greatest characteristic was not likability, and many presidents were elected without, you know, scoring high in the likability.

I'm not opposed to that, but I think the American people want and need a lot more.

MAZZARELLA: Well, actually, Bobbie, if you look back at the polls done by the Gallup Poll since 1960, they've tested the public on likability of the candidates, the issues -- the issues that they stand for -- and their party affiliations. And the only category that has been consistently a predictor has been likability.

And the reality is that we do live in a sound-bite world. We do live -- when you say that people have a 20-minute attention span, that's actually probably at least too great by a function of 10 or more, in terms of what today's average person's attention span is. And if you look at advertising, you see that in a 60-minute commercial, very, very little information is communicated.

Images, emotions, ideas are communicated visually. And that's what persuades people, whether it is to buy a particular brand of beer, or if it's to vote for president. It is not a perfect world. It is not an intellectual world; 90 percent of what people do in their heads is emotional or subconscious. Only 10 percent is rational. And I think that the candidates and their handlers understand this.

And I think that that's why you get so much of this image management, because they understand that the typical person watching these debates is not going to have a doctorate in economics. They are not going to understand the long-term implications of Al Gore's economic plans or, to the contrary, Bush's criticisms.

BATTISTA: I have got to take a quick break.

And Joe, I will get your comment or question when we come back.

We will continue here in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: In 1992, 97 million people watched the third and final presidential debate. That's the largest television audience ever for a political event.

Al with an Internet question. We will get to that in just a moment. Let me do Joe's comment here -- or question.

JOE: I don't think that the public today isn't interested in the issues. I think that we are just as issue-conscious as we were before. But now the way politics are being held and how it is being covered by the news media, they bring in the man, his personal opinions, and what is behind him.

So that's why you have more of this knowing their personality and what is the man behind it. I think they bring all that in. It's just not a beauty contest. But we seem to focus mostly on that. But there are the issues still behind it that we are looking at.

BATTISTA: Lauren, you had a comment on that too about it being a beauty contest that frustrates you a little bit.

LAUREN: Yes, yes, it does. I just -- as a first-time voter, my question is: Just how are we supposed to intelligently decide for the issues from merely trying to please the public, and just telling us what we want to hear?

BATTISTA: Allan, that's always been a problem, I think, for politicians.

LICHTMAN: Absolutely. Look, politicians are always going to say what they want the people to hear.

BATTISTA: Right. LICHTMAN: But, you know, the American public is smart. Look, you know what is going on in your country. You know what the economy is like. You know what the challenges are in things like health care, education and Social Security. Yes, you may not be able to get into the fine print of someone's economic plan. But these guys have very fundamentally different approaches to national policy. They have fundamentally different approaches to what they think has been the record of the past four years.

And you can certainly make a rational decision based on what they are going to say in this debate and all the other information, as to whether you want to continue the way we've been going or whether you want to change in the direction that George W. Bush is suggesting. Likability does not predict presidential election results. Gerry Ford was one of the most likable of all presidents.

He lost to the uptight Jimmy Carter, because he had the fall of Vietnam, a sour economy, and Watergate on his hands. And the voters wanted a change.

BATTISTA: One quick question to Mark on style. I'm sorry to keep throwing that in there, Allan, but we have to talk about it.

MAZZARELLA: That's fine.

(CROSSTALK)

BATTISTA: Are humor and spontaneity out of the question tonight? Is that a big risk for the candidate to take?

LICHTMAN: Well, they can't look as though they are not taking the opportunity seriously. But humor is always positive. There's no situation -- short of, obviously, some extremes that you can imagine -- that humor does not make someone more likable, more believable, more humble.

So humor is definitely in order. Also, I would just like to make a comment. Two of your audience mentioned that this not a beauty contest, or shouldn't be a beauty contest. To give you an idea of the influence of even something as what should be irrelevant as physical appearance, they did a poll of the Canadian electorate and found that the best-looking candidates covered by this particular survey received almost three times as many votes as the worst-looking candidates.

And that was across-the-board. The fact is, looks even make a big difference. And again, I don't disagree that content is irrelevant. But how somebody perceives what something is -- what somebody says is going to be very dependent upon how they perceive the messenger. And the messenger can't be...

(CROSSTALK) MAZZARELLA: ... Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon? Two of the most successful presidential candidates in history would have hardly made it on beauty-contest points. BATTISTA: No, but I -- let me ask this question then: Can you win a debate based on points, but not on style? I mean, does the message still get through?

MAZZARELLA: Well...

LICHTMAN: I don't think you can separate the two. I think the two combine. When you have a confident message, when you have a real vision for the country, when you're sure of yourself on the issues, when you know who you are and what you stand for, then that comes across to the American people. I don't think you could take a bad product, put an attractive label on it, and sell it to the American people. They are much too smart for that.

MAZZARELLA: Well, and I agree completely with that. There's no question, if somebody is tentative in these debates, if they don't appear to have the passion or compassion for their platform, it is not going to sell. If Bush wants to sell compassionate conservatism, he has to show compassion. He has to show passion. And he is not going to be the messenger that he wants to be if his message isn't there.

So I don't disagree with that. Content is obviously very important.

BATTISTA: Let me bring another voice in here quickly, before I have to take another break. Ken Dychtwald is with us now. He is the author of the book, "Age Power: How the 21st Century Will be Ruled by the New Old." And he joins us from Miami today.

Hey, Ken, how are you?

KEN DYCHTWALD, AUTHOR, "AGE POWER": Great, Bobbie. Good to see you.

BATTISTA: It's -- it is a general -- generally known that the most reliable voting bloc out there are the elderly. At the same time, the baby boomers are the biggest voting bloc with the -- certainly the most amount of potential to affect an election.

What are they looking for in these candidates?

DYCHTWALD: I think three things. First, I think that, in general, the boomers are looking for the candidates to tell the truth. Their kind of B.S. Geiger counter is going to be on full tilt tonight.

Second, relevancy: there's been a huge amount of discussion about issues that might have mattered to people in the '70s and '80s, but the issues that truly effect the boomers in their hard-working family years are by and large really not being dealt with in this election. And keep in mind that about 30 percent of 30 years old vote, about 50 percent of 50 years old vote, and about 70 percent of 70 years old vote. So it's almost like we're seeing demographic profiling, not racial profiling, but demographic profiling. The candidates are clearly catering to an older population.

But let me add another point: I think that the major issues for the boomers have to do with the quality of lives of our children; 75 percent of the boomers now are busy raising their kids and trying to do a good job of that. We see our children being educated in a lackluster way. We see the kind of soiling that's going on from media and Internet influence. We worry about crime and drugs. It's not really being embraced.

We are concerned, as well, about our moms and dads; is Social Security going to be secure for them? There's a lot of discussion about keeping medical care shored up, but those of us who are watching our older loved ones go through health problems know that our health care system is terrible in meeting the needs of older people.

And also I would tell you last, the boomers are dreaming of a president who will lift them out of the fray and share with them not just a recipe, but a vision for the future.

BATTISTA: Let's save that thought.

DYCHTWALD: OK.

BATTISTA: I want to go into that a little bit more when we come back from the break. I also have e-mails and audience stuff. We'll be back in just a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: OK, Sandy in the audience, you are watching tonight because you are an undecided?

SANDY: Yes, I am. I am a baby boomer born and raised in Tennessee and currently living in Texas, and the debates will help me make my decision on who to vote for.

BATTISTA: All right. And Versa (ph) is on the phone from Washington. Versa, you too are watching tonight?

VERSA: Yes, I am. But I am not going to be watching any commercial television. I only want to watch C-Span. That way I get to interpret what I hear and not have a talking head talk down to me.

BATTISTA: Good for you. We'll forgive you for not watching CNN.

VERSA: I love CNN, but for these kinds of things I'll go over and then I'll come back to you.

BATTISTA: I understand. I understand.

Ken, before we hit the break there, a few moments ago you were talking about the baby boomers and what they were looking for, a vision of sorts, a Kennedyesque vision in their leader.

DYCHTWALD: Yes, you know, for years I have been asking boomers to name a president who they have admired and respected, and the only -- or national leader -- the only names that have, frankly, ever come back to me are Kennedy and Martin Luther King, both of whom who have been dead for over 25 years. And here you have a very fascinating dynamic: you have the most well-educated, powerful generation of all time who have lived their entire life in the absence of a leader who somehow had a vision, an idea, an initiative, a program that stirred them inside and hooked them up. And so, by and large, the boomers feel apart from politics. They don't relate to the party politics.

And I must say, you know, shame on us, that we've evolved to the point where what we pay attention to is, you know, what color tie the president wears, or what the president might -- what kind of boxer shorts they wear. I think we live in an era of enormous change and excitement. And wouldn't it be great if one of our presidential candidates stepped out of the packaging and shared with us, not just a recipe, but something that would stir us, that would move us, that would make us want to hook back up together as a country, and I think the boomers have been craving this for our entire lives.

BATTISTA: Know anyone like that?

LICHTMAN: Can I follow up, Bobbie?

BATTISTA: Yes, go ahead.

LICHTMAN: Yes, you know, I think Ken makes a very good point. If you go back to the Kennedy rhetoric, time and again Kennedy would remind the American people, it's not so much what I am offering you, it is more what I am asking you to do. He put a great deal of responsibility upon the American people for national achievement, for coming together as a people, and for, in his famous words, moving the country forward together. It wasn't just a president pushing and polling the country. It was a president leading, and the American people being inspired enough to follow you.

You're not going to do that in five or 10 minutes of impression- making, and Kennedy didn't; and I repeat again how intricate...

BATTISTA: You know what -- and I guess you're not going to do that with one issue, either. I mean, you know, because what happened with McCain and Bradley and everybody pushing campaign finance reform is the one thing that Americans could help change and move the country forward in the political process, and it wasn't there.

DYCHTWALD: Bobbie, let me comment on that. I think if you were to ask the average person what stirs them in a friend or what stirs them in a leader, it's not an issue such as campaign finance reform.

There are many issues that are the details of doing business in a complicated nation such as ours. We want a competent, bright and honest individual to do that. But above that freight, you know, we're the generation that dreamed of "Strawberry Fields" and, you know, wanted to go where no man had gone before and loved seeing that first space mission.

We would like to feel, somehow, that we can get back into the political life, into the community life and be a part of something greater than ourselves; and I must say, whether it's in a debate or whether it's in a one-liner or in a book that these candidates have been putting out, we need to hear a little bit more of that vision -- more than just the rhetoric and the packaging and, you know, 2 percent of this and 1 percent of that. That's not what's going to stir people to vote.

BATTISTA: I've got to take a break.

Judy in California e-mails: "Gore and Bush could do the American people a huge favor and agree to spend no more soft money on campaigns. Without that, nothing they say tonight will not have meaning, because both candidates are bought and paid for."

And Diana, in Florida, says: "I will be watching. Like the people who go to the Daytona 500, I will be waiting to see a spectacular crack-up and will be disappointed if there isn't one."

Diana, you cynic.

We'll be back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SUNY: (INAUDIBLE)

BATTISTA: Oops! We've got to work on correcting that audio for you just a little bit. Mark, I'm going to lose your satellite in just a minute, so let me ask you a final question here: How tough should these candidates be on each other tonight and, if they make a mistake, should they correct it?

MAZZARELLA: Well, answering the last question first, if you do make a bad impression by making a mistake, you're better off owning up to it and correcting it immediately. Don't let it linger. So if they misspeak, they should correct it. If they realize they've said something that was wrong, they should modify it as soon as possible and get rid of that lingering bad impression.

As far as, you know, just basically the approach that they should take as far as criticizing each other, being tough-minded, I think that everyone expects them to be tough on one another and expectations are going to allow them to meet those expectations without having any negative reaction. So I think a certain degree will be expected and tolerated; and, in fact, if they're not, the public will be disappointed.

But if they go over the bounds of what people would consider to be sort of a professional critique, I think that they run a very big risk.

BATTISTA: All right, Mark Mazzarella; thank you so much for joining us today.

MAZZARELLA: Thanks for having me.

BATTISTA: Appreciate your insight into this.

MAZZARELLA: Thanks. BATTISTA: Colleen (ph) in Nebraska sends us an e-mail: "Frankly, I've had it up to here with campaign rhetoric. I'll be glad when this silly circus is over -- I'm voting for Nader."

(LAUGHTER)

Which brings me to the third party candidates who we will not be seeing tonight; and, Ken, let me ask you about that first of all, because one of the interesting things about the boomers is that they are not as tied to political parties as the generations before them, and they're angrier about not seeing Nader or Buchanan or Harry Browne tonight.

DYCHTWALD: Right; if you talk to a senior, within a few minutes they'll try to figure out what party you belong to. That matters quite a lot.

Boomers try to figure out what you believe in, what your causes are, what your issues are. As it turns out, only about 30 percent of the boomers align with Democrats and about 30 percent with the Republicans and 60 percent are floating around in the middle.

Now, the Nader voice or the Buchanan voice is interesting because it gives us an opportunity to hear some other ideas. Ralph Nader who, by the way, I think is a pretty terrific character in his own right -- unfortunately, he's still in, kind of, the '70s, which is protesting against this and protesting against that.

I think what the boomers want is another candidate who will say, what if we could become this, what about this possibility. So the two points are, I like the idea that the voice of Nader and Buchanan is alive and fresh. It stimulates things and makes things a little unpredictable. I wish we saw more of them.

But on the other hand, I really do think we've got to break out of this turning us into little packages. You know, we're in the greatest nation in the history of the world. Our leadership should be something of grand vision, and I'd love to create a mechanism within our political arena where that could be brought alive.

And perhaps having the third party active could do more of that.

BATTISTA: I've got to take yet another break; I'm with you on that, though, Ken. And Allan, I want to get your opinion about third- party candidates when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: There are only 900 seats available for tonight's debate. Each campaign gets one-third of the tickets. The rest go to the commission on president debates.

Some of the commission's tickets will go to host University of Massachusetts, which will distribute most of them to students.

We're back. Allan, your thoughts here quickly on what do you think the criteria ought to be for a candidate getting into the national debates?

LICHTMAN: Look, third parties have played a vital role in American history. They've given voice to discontent. They've brought all kinds of new issues into American politics that were later absorbed by the major parties.

Four years ago, I sat on National Public Radio with one of the co-chairs of the bipartisan Republican and Democratic debate commission, and I suggested that at least one of the debates should be broadly open to third-party candidates based not on poll standings but based on the number of ballots you've been to get on in the individual states.

I thought that I had gotten some kind of agreement. Obviously, they bashed that. They set up a standard, 15 percent in the polls, designed to shut out the third parties entirely. They've created a self-fulfilling prophecy. You're low in the polls, you can't get into the debates. Obviously, if you can't get into the debates, you can't improve your poll standings.

Surely, in one of three debates there's room for some new and interesting and exciting voices, even if realistically they don't have a chance to win the election.

BATTISTA: Gwen (ph), comment.

GWEN: I was just thinking that at this point in the election I'm really still torn between the two candidates. And of all the issues I disagree and agree with a lot of what they have to say, but when it comes down to it, I really want a president with integrity. And that's something that is, you know, something we really need right now.

And throughout the media, they up-play every mistake the candidates makes, and that overshadows the actual issues. And hopefully with the debate tonight, I'll be able to really see what they have to say and make a decision based on that.

BATTISTA: This is your first election?

GWEN: Yes, it is.

BATTISTA: How did I know?

Ken...

LICHTMAN: I think...

BATTISTA: I'm sorry. Allan, go ahead.

LICHTMAN: I think that is the great value of the debates. Voters can see and judge for themselves. You know, idealism is not limited to the baby-boom generation. Throughout America people yearn to get beyond the daily toil of life and to be inspired. And my advice to the candidates always is fire the pundits, fire the pollsters, fire the handlers, speak from the heart to voters like the young lady from whom we've just heard.

DYCHTWALD: If I might add, Bobbie -- can I add something?

BATTISTA: Yes, sure.

DYCHTWALD: First of all, I agree with Allan. I like your thoughts a lot. And the one thing I would add is that you're going to watch two individuals tonight -- both of whom, by the way, seem to be very good men with very good families and great principles -- but they're also well-educated, tough warriors. And you're going to watch one interesting and complicated battle tonight, and probably not much of it is going to be serendipitous or off the cuff or unprepared. You're about to watch something that's going to be not what we saw in years past, but a sophisticated couple of guys going at it full tilt.

BATTISTA: Good, I hope so. Ken Dychtwald and Allan Lichtman, a pleasure.

Oh, no, we have one more segment. I'm sorry. We'll be back in just a moment. Good.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: In the time that we have left, I have to take this phone call, because it's too cute. Andrew is on the phone with us. Andrew, you're 12, right?

ANDREW: Yes.

BATTISTA: And you're planning on having a debate party tonight? What is that...

ANDREW: That's right.

BATTISTA: What is that all about?

ANDREW: Well, I got this idea from talking with a woman at the Democratic Party of Illinois, and ever since, I've talked to my mom, she's approved it. And now the state comptroller of Illinois is coming to my party along with 10 kids. The media is coming. And I've been so interested in this campaign, and I think this debate will be a major factor.

And I just hope that the candidates reach out to youth, because it's very important.

BATTISTA: That's absolutely terrific. What are you serving to eat?

ANDREW: Pizza.

BATTISTA: Pizza! All right. Well, Andrew, best of luck to you and good for you for being so involved in the process at such a young age.

Allan Lichtman, Ken Dychtwald, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate your time as always. And we'll see you again tomorrow for more TALKBACK LIVE.

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