Why Gore and Bradley Must Debate

There is a serious problem in the 2000 presidential race: every Democrat I know supports Bill Bradley. Many of the Republicans support John McCain. Perhaps these early endorsements don't seem like a problem, especially considered in the context of the questionable newspaper coverage of candidates, the irrational tendency to pick a winner before the race has begun, and the sensational attention devoted to the dramatically divergent fundraising fortunes of the various candidates.

Yet there is a more subtle and scary element to these preferences: when you ask these otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people why they support these candidates, they freely admit it's because they know nothing about what these men think. It seems they want to keep it that way, revel in their ignorance, and therein make a political error greater than the decision of one executive to indulge his sexual appetites in the Oval Office.

Two weeks ago, Vice President Al Gore '69 challenged his party rival, Bill Bradley, to a series of debates through the primary season. On Tuesday Gore announced he would arrange for a debate on Nov. 4 in New Hampshire if Bradley is willing. Bradley's campaign has so far agreed to three debates between now and March 2000, though it has not said if the candidate plans to appear for the proposed New Hampshire debate.

I was in New Hampshire this last weekend, more to look at leaves than candidates, but I did notice that Gore's and George W. Bush's offices in Concord, across the street from the state capitol, sit one next to the other. This is probably how Gore wished to envision the campaign: the sitting Vice President and the media's (and perhaps the people's) choice as challenger.

The new-found prominence of Bradley probably has George W. to thank. The media, eager to play kingmaker, acted too quickly in helping Bush out-distance the crowd. With a serious Republican race seemingly finished by the hype and one shred of the electoral process--a closed straw vote of the oh-so-representative Iowa caucus--the media faced the prospect of several buzz-free months.

So, the coverage refocused on Bill Bradley. Of course, it would be clearly unfair to give the media all the credit for Bradley's meteoric rise in the past few weeks. A variety of candidates on the primary landscape is both natural and necessary. Furthermore, the Vice President's legendary blandness--though likely more legend than fact--probably inclined the media to throw itself at Bradley's feet. The national media must have been overjoyed when Gore took the cue that Bradley was not only on the cover of Time magazine and in the headlines, but at his heels, and put out the offer for debates.

The media has made much of the idea of a vice president playing underdog, but in doing so they miss the point. Debates can do what the media, in all their excitement about personalities, drug intrigue and the money trail have been unable or unwilling to do: talk about the issues. Though the post-impeachment Clinton presidency was able to govern without addressing the issues, we can only hope the next president will consider the many-faceted challenges that face our nation, from U.N. bills and international peace negotiations, to Social Security and budget reform, to the seemingly escalating cycles of hate and violence in America's streets, schools and homes. Politics have become a distraction, not an answer--an escapist reality that must surely scare someone besides me.

The most important piece of the 1992 Clinton campaign--and what may have secured his victory--was the "town meeting," a chance for real people to ask their screened, but still hard-hitting questions, about everything from the environment to the candidate's underwear. The town meeting made politics interesting again for a wider swath of America, and actually got some discussion of the issues in the process.

Debates are the grandest way to size up politicians: what they think, how they act under pressure, how they retort spontaneous jabs that get past the moderators. Questions, even if predictable, help set a baseline for a campaign and provide a chance for the electorate to see the candidates in close quarters. It is an opportunity to see which, if any, issues divide the candidates within a party, and a chance for candidates to break out of assumed norms and take risks. Debates are unpredictable, a fact alone that might help encourage the media to turn their attention to issues and away from mere name recognition.

The ever-earlier creeping of the political season can give candidates the opportunity to present full-fledged conceptions of American problems such as violence and work on selling the public on solutions that won't fit into a soundbite. Having the courage to step forward and truly say something means facing the fallout of critics, but only an immature or rapidly diminishing political system can be content with slogans in the place of ideas. Debates can only bring us closer to a campaign that tackles tough concerns, and candidates offered a debate should prove their seriousness by accepting as soon as their campaign manager clears the space.

American politics is impoverished without it.

Adam I. Arenson '00-'01 is a history and literature concentrator in Lowell House. His column appears on alternate Thursdays.