THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 8, 1996 TAG: 9610080016
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A16 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 57 lines
No one expected challenger Bob Dole to land a knockout punch in his Sunday debate with President Clinton. But to close the gap, he needed to make a case for preferring his positions on the big issues. He did not.
In large part, the debate echoed the attack-ad campaigns the candidates are running. Each man caricatured the other as the sum of his most extreme positions. Each said the other was a big taxer. Clinton characterized Dole as a Gingrich clone, an enemy of Medicare and education. Dole described Clinton as an untrustworthy liberal in favor of government takeovers of health care and education who would let the United Nations dictate U.S. foreign policy.
Certainly the candidates disagree on many issues, but the differences are often subtle and neither man is an extremist. Voters know it and many resent the constant hyperbole. On several issues, in fact, no apparent disagreement emerged. Each candidate claimed to favor nonpartisan commissions to reform campaign financing and to cope with the impact of the baby boomers on entitlement programs, but neither has pushed the issues during the past four years.
Dole used a blizzard of figures to suggest the economy is faltering due to Clinton. The president used his own statistics and expert witnesses to make the opposite case. Voters will undoubtedly decide who's right largely on the basis of their own personal circumstances. If Clinton weren't confident the numbers favor him, he wouldn't have recycled Ronald Reagan's rhetorical question from 1980. More than once, he asked viewers whether they were better off today than four years ago.
Dole complained that Clinton was taking credit for economic good news caused in part by the actions of Republican governors. Clinton conceded the credit must be shared, but Dole's argument contained the tacit admission that the economy has performed well. That contradicts Dole's sky-is-falling rhetoric.
Dole's campaign is based on the promise that he can give a huge tax cut while balancing the budget while taking entitlements off the table and increasing spending on defense and drug programs. The numbers don't appear to add up and he did nothing to clarify the math.
On style, Clinton was the clear winner, answering questions in complete sentences and demonstrating a command of the issues. Dole often seemed to be free-associating or speaking in code. Those who don't follow politics obsessively must have found his shorthand references to nation-building, mission creep, top-down review, trial lawyers and Hollywood elites mysterious and unconnected to their own lives.
This was perhaps Dole's last best chance to begin changing the minds of undecided voters and lukewarm Clinton supporters. But instant polls suggested the debate had done little to alter perceptions. If anything, existing support for each man solidified.
Clinton said Sunday, ``we just see the world in different ways.'' A majority of the electorate seems to be seeing things Clinton's way. Dole has got to offer a clearly-defined alternative road map for the next four years and persuade voters to choose his route rather than Clinton's. And time is running out. by CNB