THE SCENE
A New Episode of 'Friends'? No, Just Democrats Debating
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER New York Times
JOHNSTON, Iowa, Jan. 4 — For sheer comedic appeal, the Democratic presidential debate on Sunday was short a Sharpton, though it had its moments. As when Howard Dean offhandedly promised to balance the budget "in the sixth or seventh year of my administration."
Someone howled, and the audience, noticeably short of Dean partisans, broke up at the presumptuousness. Dr. Dean seemed not to realize that he was the butt of the joke, and even his campaign manager, Joe Trippi, later said he thought the crowd was laughing with him.
Then there was the moment when Carol Moseley Braun, resplendent in a dark suit (as were all the men on stage) but largely silent as the microphone-hoggers to either side of her went at one another, pleaded for a minute of "personal privilege" to get a word in edgewise.
But this was the first debate in months in which the rivals were permitted to question one another, and it quickly, if briefly, looked something like a schoolyard rumble.
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut flailed away at Howard Dean over tax cuts, Iraq and the sealing of some of his records as governor of Vermont, chewing up so much time in rebuttals and counterrebuttals that the moderator Paul Anger, editor of The Des Moines Register, asked the two to "take it outside, if you need to."
At one point, the all-positive-all-the-time Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, after chastising Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri for negative attacks, himself all but called Mr. Gephardt a liar, though in fairness, he had just caught Mr. Gephardt in a falsehood, for saying that everyone onstage but he and Representative Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio had voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement.
As Mr. Gephardt conceded his mistake but did not quite say he had been wrong, hands raised across the stage, but Mr. Kucinich beat out Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts for the floor.
It was one of several times Mr. Kerry was left hanging. At another point, he waved his arms in frustration, dropping a sheet of notes to the floor.
Even Ms. Braun managed to get into the act, pointing out that Mr. Edwards had voted against a ban on corporate farm ownership of both meat production and packing facilities. Mr. Edwards said he had done so to protect North Carolina farmers but would support such a ban as president.
Asked if she had any rebuttal, Ms. Braun smiled and said, "No, no, just the record."
Mr. Kucinich, who several times tried and failed to pin down Dr. Dean on how he would get American troops out of Iraq, won at least one round of questioning: when the candidates were all asked to name a mistake they had made and what they had learned from it.
Mr. Kucinich, a former mayor of Cleveland, owned up to having "fired the chief of police, live, on the 6 o'clock news on Good Friday," adding: "If any of you can top that, I'll yield to you. But let's say that in the years since, I have learned a certain amount of diplomacy."
The other candidates' answers were more self-serving.
Mr. Gephardt said he had voted for Ronald Reagan's 1981 tax cuts. Mr. Edwards said he had trusted President Bush to administer the No Child Left Behind law fairly. Mr. Kerry said he had failed to respond to an attack in his first political race. And Mr. Lieberman said he had once focused more on the rights of criminals than crime victims as Connecticut's attorney general.
Only Dr. Dean cited a mistake from the current campaign, going out of his way to apologize yet again, as he did in answer to a similar question at a debate last fall, for having said in March that Mr. Edwards had supported the Iraq war but failed to stand by his position.
Dr. Dean's choice, interestingly, had nothing to do with any of his recent, and often clarified, statements about Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and the Book of Job. Whether omitting those was a mistake, he did not say.
Outside the auditorium, in the snow, hundreds of supporters of several candidates proved their loyalty, if not their sanity, by gathering hours ahead of time, staking out pieces of turf in a wintry office park and chanting boisterously for their candidate, perhaps just to keep warm.
Mr. Kerry's people raised a tower with his logo, "The Real Deal," and shouted "J.K. all the way" at supporters of Mr. Gephardt. The Gephardt backers, who had their own sign on a crane, shouted back, louder.
Dr. Dean's campaign showed its gift for one-upmanship: not one but three cranes held huge banners aloft spelling out "Win," "With" and "Dean," at the entrance to the Iowa Public Television studio where the debate was held.
And Mr. Edwards's supporters mirrored his bent for sidestepping the crossfire by picking a spot a few hundred yards up the road.
Inside, the debate cooled down when the candidates could no longer question one another, even when the panelists did their best to provoke. When Mr. Anger told Mr. Kucinich that many Democrats did not think he was electable, he said, "Well, I'm electable if you vote for me."
"Then why are your poll ratings in low single digits," he was asked.
"Oh, well, they're just about to come up."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |
