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NPR’s presidential radio debate offers more of what we’ve already heard
BY ADAM REILLY
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2004 -- Yesterday’s Democratic presidential debate -- conducted in Des Moines, Iowa and broadcast on National Public Radio--lost some of its oomph before it even began. Wesley Clark, who continues to enjoy considerable buzz as the one candidate capable of derailing Howard Dean, isn’t participating in the Iowa caucuses and declined NPR’s invitation. And John Edwards -- who turned in arguably the strongest performance in Sunday’s Iowa debate and seems to be gaining momentum -- wasn’t there either. (Ditto for Al Sharpton, but at this point he’s less a candidate than a self-promotional machine.) Still, as the debate’s kickoff approached, it was interesting to ponder whether the no-audience, radio-only format might lead to more substantive exchanges. And -- as with every Democratic debate to date -- there was the bigger question of whether something might transpire that would significantly hurt Dean or help his rivals. Here are the short answers: It didn’t, and nothing did. As far as substance goes, the radio debate didn’t seem to generate any obvious improvement. As they have in previous debates, the candidates mostly hewed to the same scripts and personae that have gotten them this far. Dean was a Bush-bashing economic populist railing against right-wing Republicans. Dick Gephardt talked ceaselessly about his Clinton-era accomplishments. Joe Lieberman presented himself as a moralistic centrist. And John Kerry -- really, what can you say about Kerry that hasn’t been said already? The truth is that, if there was a loser in yesterday’s debate, it was the senator from Massachusetts. And -- as usual -- this was due to self-inflicted wounds rather than salvos from any of his opponents. As he has throughout the campaign, Kerry demonstrated a remarkable ability to negate his obvious strengths by A) coming across as snooty and B) drifting into clunky verbosity. Given an opportunity to jump into an exchange on the US’s policy toward Pakistan and India, Kerry couldn’t resist reminding moderator Neil Conan that he’d brought the subject up a few minutes earlier: "Well, at the end of my comment, when I ran out of time, I raised the India issue," Kerry noted snippily. Attempting to take Dean to task for his continued (but maddeningly inconsequential) insistence that middle-class families didn’t get a tax cut under Bush, Kerry invoked the examples of Angela Runkle and April Balog, two Iowa women of modest means who Kerry said would lose thousands of dollars if Dean’s proposed repeal of all Bush’s tax cuts became law. The women’s odd names made Kerry’s awkward determination to personalize policy issues even more ineffectual and laughable than usual; this was only exacerbated when Kerry insisted on referring to Runkle two more times. In response to an audience question, addressed to all candidates, on the importance of religious belief in their lives, Kerry turned in the weakest answer, simultaneously asserting that his faith is a foundation of his personal identity and that it never enters into his political decision-making. (For a vastly superior answer, check out Dennis Kucinich’s reply in the transcript, located here.) And, when arguing that Dean’s tax-cut rollbacks would result in the return of the marriage penalty, Kerry lapsed into flat-out sarcasm: "Now, there's a terrific message: Democrats in America if you get married, you ought to pay more taxes." It was a valid point, made in the worst possible manner. But while the NPR debate didn’t offer anything likely to shake up the race, it did have its moments. We learned, for example, that Kerry, Dean, Lieberman, Carol Moseley Braun, and Kucinich have all ridden snowmobiles. (Gephardt was the only participating candidate who hasn’t.) Conan, the moderator, made fun of Kucinich when the Ohio congressman held up a pie chart while discussing his advocacy of cuts to the Pentagon budget: "Congressman Kucinich is holding up a pie chart, which is not truly effective on the radio," Conan said dryly. And, on a more serious note, Lieberman offered a devastating assessment of the political implications of Dean’s stance on taxes that cut through the former Vermont governor’s insistence on equating "taxes" with "expenses" -- the kind of double-speak that would drive Democrats crazy if President George W. Bush attempted it -- and neatly synopsized the risks of Dean’s ascendancy. "I don't know of a case where a Democratic candidate for president has been elected who called for a massive increase in taxes on the middle class," Lieberman remarked. Well said. Let’s hope reports that Dean is mulling his own proposal for middle-class tax breaks are accurate, and that -- if and when such a proposal is actually made -- it’s not too little, too late.
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