October 5 - 12, 2000
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NBC pundit and Newsweek senior editor Jonathan Alter tried on a new hat prior to Tuesday's presidential debate -- media consultant. Reporter's Notebook
Debating points
by Seth Gitell
At a forum on nuclear policy sponsored by the Global Security Institute and Fourth Freedom Forum at Boston's Park Plaza Hotel, Alter took the podium after more than an hour of detailed technical discussion and lectured the panel on how to get the media's attention. "I probably know the least about the issues of anyone on the panel, but the most about the press," Alter said to the assembled luminaries, which included Robert McNamara, former defense secretary for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson; Richard Butler, a former United Nations weapons inspector; and the former CIA director Stansfield Turner -- all of whom were there to make a case for nuclear arms control.
Alter urged the group to ambush forums on Capitol Hill where they could "square off" against their opponents for the sake of getting journalistic juices flowing. He also advised the advocates to seek out stories on "near misses" and suggested they "might want to consider narrowing their focus." He even came up with a catchy slogan about nuclear warhead levels that could capture the media's attention -- "5000 by 2002!"
Not forgetting his ties to reporters, Alter stood up for journalists whose eyes often glaze over at talk of arms control. "Most of these journalists have a lot in their heads. They have to navigate the intricacies of prescription drug policies," he said. "Both the journalists and the public would welcome a little simplicity."
How did the panelists take it? They applauded Alter's remarks.
Even as activists outside the UMass-Boston campus railed against the "corporate armies" inside, journalists cavorted in the Budweiser Hospitality suite in a tent next to the media center.
A highlight of the Anheuser-Busch-sponsored bacchanalia were the seven "Budweiser girls" clad in red sweaters and khaki pants. Budweiser arranged for the women to attend the debate with Boston's Ford Modeling Agency -- not the Manhattan-based more famous entity with the same name. At one point before the debate, one middle aged media-type was giving career advice to a model, while a denim-clad technician battled another in ping-pong on a table covered with the Budweiser logo. (Six televisions blared the Major League Baseball playoffs across the room.)
A few feet away stood former Clinton spokesman Mike McCurry -- who was sucking down one of the ubiquitous ice-cold free bottles of Bud. I gestured toward the Bud girls and asked whether Clinton would have liked the surroundings. McCurry -- who now gives his opinion on CNN and handles media work for Anheuser-Bush -- played coy. "He lived for these debates," he said. "He wouldn't miss working spin ally."
But another attendee -- albeit a non-famous one -- gave a different answer when asked the same question. "I'm just surprised they don't have cigars," he quipped.
There was a lanky Northeastern Republican governor in the media center last night, but it wasn't Governor Paul Cellucci - or even former Massachusetts governor William Weld. New York's chief executive George Pataki made the media rounds before the debate. Pataki talked up Bush and addressed some issues of New York politics. Asked if he knew where Weld, who has talked about running for governor of New York, was, Pataki gruffly replied "I haven't seen him."
Department of What Were They Thinking? Credentials worn by the "surrogate staff" for the Bush-Cheney campaign bore the letters "SS" in a circle. No one must have noticed this was the same designation given to the Nazis who ran the death camps in World War II.
Overheard: One Bush staffer to another: "This city's a pit." Guess Governor Cellucci hasn't gotten to the Bush staff yet.
Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire on playing Vice President Gore during Bush's preparation for the debate. "It's very difficult because he changes his positions so much," said Gregg, who garnered the assignment after playing a similar role for Jack Kemp in 1996.
Different priorities: Rev. Jesse Jackson won't tell his old political adviser, Steve Cobble, who's working with Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, to beg off that campaign in favor of Gore's. "He's exercising his rights," said Jackson. "We have different interests. His interest is getting Nader into the debate. My interest is to stop Bush from putting three Supreme Court justices in there who are just like Scalia.
