Gregg Describes Debate Prep
By Dennis Mayer
WASHINGTON, Sep. 27 — Crawford, Texas, is “a lot different than New Hampshire,” said Sen. Judd Gregg.
“It’s different than what I thought — looks a lot like the African savannah.”
Gregg has spent a lot of time in Crawford recently. The Republican senator has been playing the role of Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to help President George W. Bush prepare for Thursday night’s presidential debate on national security issues with Democratic nominee Kerry. Gregg’s job is to learn Kerry’s positions and then debate Bush based on them – a job that he jokingly claims is harder than it seems because Kerry often takes “two or three positions” on any given issue.
Gregg is used to sparring with Bush by now. He played Al Gore in practice debates with Bush in 2000, a role he was tapped for after running Bush’s primary campaign in New Hampshire and because he had played Gore in 1996 to help prepare then-vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp for his debates with then-Vice President Gore.
“We’re comfortable with each other,” Gregg said, adding that he plans to continue playing Kerry for Bush’s campaign for the rest of the campaign season.
Since Gregg had such strong ties to the Bush debate preparation, he declined to elaborate on Bush’s strategy for the debates.
Rep. Charles Bass (R-N.H.) said the first debate would be about which candidate can make the American people feel safer. Whichever candidate can do that will win the debate, he said.
He expected Kerry to try to paint Bush’s Iraq policy as a “failure” by focusing on specific problems in Iraq.
Bass said that Bush, on the other hand, will try to focus on the bigger principles of the Iraq war and its role in America’s war on terror. At the same time, Bass said, he expected Bush to point out any inconsistencies in Kerry’s voting record on national security.
Bass’s Democratic opponent in the Nov. 2 election, Paul Hodes, said the debates will be a “tremendous opportunity” for Kerry to present himself as a clear alternative to Bush.
Hodes said that while Bush is a “master of style,” Kerry is a “master of substance,” and that Kerry should try to pin Bush down on facts and not let him “skate by” with “easy quips and sound bites.”
Jennifer Donahue, senior political analyst for the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, said that in most debates, the incumbent adopts a defensive position while the challenger attacks the incumbent’s record. She said she expects this debate to be the same, with Bush defending his actions in Iraq and Kerry telling the audience what Bush did wrong and what he would have done differently.
According to Donahue, the key for Bush will be to know his facts on everything – “from the price of milk to the cost of a gun in Iraq,” she said – so that he will be able to effectively defend his policies and spending.
Kerry, on the other hand, will have to define himself to voters, since as the challenger, he is somewhat of an unknown quantity to the national electorate.
“It’s the first time the public will be fully focused and engaged on the election,” she said, adding that for Kerry, a “win” would be “creating a strong impression of who he is and what he would do for the country.”
Donahue said the debate’s rigid format makes it difficult for the public to get a real sense of the candidates..
Thursday night’s debate at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla, the first of three scheduled between the candidates, will begin at 9 p.m., and will last 90 minutes. Jim Lehrer, the anchor and executive editor of PBS’s The NewsHour, will moderate.
The second debate, a town hall-style meeting in which “soft supporters” of both candidates will be given a chance to ask prescreened questions of the candidates, will be Friday, Oct. 8, in St. Louis and moderated by Charles Gibson of ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
A third debate, in which the candidates will primarily address domestic issues, is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 15, at Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz, and will be moderated by Bob Schieffer, CBS News’s chief Washington correspondent and the moderator of Face the Nation.
A vice-presidential debate between Vice President Dick Cheney and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 5. It will take place at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and will be moderated by Gwen Ifill, moderator of PBS’s “Washington Week.”
