Searching for the Difference

In the second presidential debate last night, the two major candidates sat across a table from each other and spoke in a far more collegial and less confrontational manner than in their previous meeting. However, this camaraderie was not in the best interest of the voters, as the two candidates sought common ground on many of the issues and failed to highlight adequately their very real policy differences.

Both seemed to be addressing each other and their advisors rather than the general public, speaking in code words and bullet points that require significant interpretation. On the debate's major issues of on foreign policy, discrimination issues, health care and the environment, voters must know where their candidates stand in order to make the right decision in November.

The rush to agreement was most visible in the first topic of the evening, foreign policy. It was wise of moderator Jim Lehrer to ask the candidates which recent U.S. military actions they supported, especially since so much of the campaign's foreign policy arguments have been on the abstract and philosophical level. However, the answers were not always illuminating, as Texas Gov. George W. Bush repeatedly praised the foreign policy decisions of the Clinton Administration. Bush noted his preference for using the military in war-fighting rather than "nation-building" activities and argued for a more narrow view of what is in the nation's interest, one that would exclude the campaigns in Haiti and Somalia.

Vice President Al Gore '69, on the other hand, reflected a concern that our moral authority abroad is a matter of national interest--one that may require U.S. intervention in cases of genocide. However, neither candidate adequately responded to the issue of intervention in Rwanda in the mid-1990s, although Gore noted that the later humanitarian response should not have been so delayed.

Touching on issues that appeared in the vice-presidential debate, the candidates agreed on several issues of social discrimination. Although both expressed opposition to racial profiling, Gore was alone in expressing support for a law that would end the practice, as well as for the hate crimes law currently pending in Congress. Bush favored an approach that would give greater choice to the states on racial profiling and argued that new hate crimes laws could be rendered unnecessary by more vigorous enforcement of existing law.

Similarly, while both candidates said they were opposed to gay marriage, only Gore expressed his support of civil unions, though he did not say how they should be implemented. Gore also asked Bush to endorse the Employer Non-Discrimination Act, a bill pending in Congress that would ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. Bush's response did not mention this bill or the subject of civil unions. Bush did stress that gays should not be extended "special rights," although he did not clarify what the term meant despite Lehrer's prodding.

On two traditionally Democratic issues, health care and the environment, the candidates took further pains to agree on basic principles. Both candidates recognized that 40 million uninsured young people is a sad record for the wealthiest nation on earth; Gore's response featured immediate federal efforts to enable mothers and children to obtain health care, while Bush argued that not all the uninsured desire insurance and proposed medical savings accounts to provide incentives.

On the environment, the candidates reiterated the importance of clean air and water. Yet in addition to repeating his opposition to opening the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve to oil drilling, Gore placed greater emphasis on taking action against global warming, including tax incentives for the development of renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies.

Bush did not view reducing carbon emissions as a priority; he did endorse clean coal technologies, although these do not have much effect on carbon dioxide. Bush spoke mainly of a different approach to enforcing environmental regulations and establishing national monuments, one that would take greater account of local and industry concerns.

We hope that the last debate next week will give the candidates an opportunity to clarify the issues on which voters should make their decisions. Unfortunately, Lehrer's last question of the evening did not further this goal; by challenging Gore's credibility in a way that gave Bush the first response, he ended the debate in a way that put the vice president at a distinct disadvantage.

Questions of credibility are not the sort that can be resolved in a two-minute debate response; in an election as detail- and number-focused as this, the moderator must take care not to undercut one side's ability to criticize the other's arguments. Next week's debate would best serve the voters by giving them the evidence they need to decide.