Commission sets limits on sides' face-off requests

By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff, 9/15/2000

WASHINGTON - George W. Bush wanted three debates structured to his liking. Al Gore wanted two every week, be it on cable TV, the Internet, or radio.

Yet when the two campaigns finally met face-to-face yesterday with the Commission on Presidential Debates, its cochairmen, Paul G. Kirk Jr. and Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., laid out the way it was going to be. Looking across a conference table on the ninth floor of a Washington law firm, Kirk told the four negotiators from each side that too much time, money, and effort had been invested arranging the commission's three proposed presidential debates, as well as a vice presidential face-off.

The commission, Kirk said firmly, would not support anything other than meetings on the dates, times, and locations that had been announced in January. The first would be an Oct. 3 debate between the presidential contenders at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

Taking the floor moments later, Fahrenkopf said the commission was open to discussion about formats, moderators, and other details, but not the calendar or venues.

With those markers laid, Donald Evans, chairman of the Bush campaign, spoke up, saying the Texas governor had dropped his objections and would accept the commission proposal. Then, Evans and his counterpart, William Daley, chairman of the Gore campaign, along with their teams, spent three more hours laying the groundwork for a final agreement on format and other details, according to Kirk and Fahrenkopf.

Along the way, there was time for sandwiches and soft drinks, as well as a collegial exchange of ideas not normally seen between political rivals in mid-campaign.

"Frankly, for two campaigns, for all they have at stake, it was the way you'd hope it would be in terms of grown-ups talking through an important issue," Kirk said in an interview.

The backdrop for yesterday's meeting was set Sept. 3, when Bush summoned reporters to the garden at the Governor's Mansion in Austin, Texas. He declared he would break with commission tradition and debate Gore for an hour Sept. 12 on a prime-time edition of NBC's "Meet the Press," another hour Oct. 3 on CNN's "Larry King Live," and a third time for 90 minutes at the commission's proposed Oct. 17 debate at Washington University in St. Louis.

Gore, who had proposed dropping all campaign commercials in favor of twice-weekly debates, immediately rejected the schedule. He pushed for the commission outline as a starting point for a series of encounters. Over the ensuing days, Bush tried to make the issue a measure of Gore's credibility, noting the vice president had previously agreed to debate "anytime, anywhere," yet was subsequently setting conditions. The vice president remained resolute, and soon even some Republicans began to question Bush's approach.

A week ago the governor agreed to have his aides meet with representatives from the commission and the Gore campaign, and the summit was later set for noon yesterday.

Kirk and Fahrenkopf arrived at 10 a.m. at the commission's law firm, Ross, Dixon & Bell, where they held a two-hour strategy session with three commission directors. They were former US senator John Danforth of Missouri; Clifford L. Alexander Jr., chairman of Dun & Bradstreet Corp.; and Dorothy S. Ridings, former president of the League of Women Voters. Also in the room were the commission's executive director, Janet H. Brown, and the commission's legal counsel.

All agreed to take a hard line when it came to the sites, dates, and debate lengths, a structure the commission had publicly outlined on Jan. 5. The framework was decided after lengthy negotiations with potential hosts and the major television networks, which agreed to make time available between the Olympics, the National Football League schedule, and the November "sweeps," when ad rates are set based on television viewership.

"That's what the commission is about, to try to prepare a game plan so the citizens of the country will have the opportunity to have this exchange in sufficient numbers and lengths to get their views of these candidates," Kirk said.

The Bush team arrived at noon through a back entrance. It included Evans, Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh, Andrew Card, who had organized the Republican National Convention, and a campaign lawyer. Daley arrived about the same time through the opposite entrance of the office building, pausing to make a statement at a stand of microphones. He was accompanied by his fellow negotiators, Labor Secretary Alexis Herman and James Johnson, former chairman of the Federal National Mortgage Association.

As Daley finished with his remarks, a bizarre scene ensued.

A photographer for the New York Daily News, Harry Hamburg, tried to take a picture of the group walking into the meeting, but he was grabbed by the throat by a man identifying himself as the building manager. Hamburg held his camera overhead and snapped a series of frames, but the scene startled Daley, whose departure was still being recorded by a bank of TV cameras. As Daley prepared to intervene, the manager released Hamburg. He later filed a report with Washington police.