Moments after Governor George W. Bush of Texas and Vice President Al Gore finished their closing remarks last night, the TV pundits began rendering a verdict that sounded like a split decision.
''I think the one who gained the most was George Bush,'' said CBS's Bob Schieffer. His colleague Gloria Borger agreed that ''Bush did gain,'' by holding his own with the vice president.
On CNN, Jeff Greenfield said he thought ''the atmosphere of the debate'' and the Texas governor's more conversational tone ''helped Bush.'' But ABC's George Stephanopoulos said he thought ''Gore dominated the debate'' because ''most of the time was spent on the issues he has an advantage on.'' Andy Hiller of WHDH-TV (Channel 7) said the battle was close and competitive, but wondered if Bush was too ''diffident.''
In this age of the TV campaign, post-debate punditry is a staple of election coverage. What is not clear is exactly how the commentators - who revel in scoring debates as contests - affect viewers who may be watching through a different prism.
''The pundits shape the way in which the story is covered and presented,'' said former Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry yesterday. But even as he prepared for his role as ''a talking head on CNN,'' he added that ''I vastly discount the importance of what the chattering class has to say.''
Yesterday, in the cavernous media center at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, where the nation's ''chattering class'' of pundits came to spin and be spun, the atmosphere was expectant. Earlier in the day, at a forum sponsored by Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, presidential adviser David Gergen expressed the view ''that this is the most important set of debates we've had since Kennedy-Nixon.''
One apparent sign of the weight of the moment was the testosterone-laden sports rhetoric that filled the pre-debate news shows. In remarks on CBS's evening newscast, anchor Dan Rather intoned that ''kickoff is at nine.'' On CNN's ''Crossfire,'' cohost Bill Press compared the debate to the heavyweight title bout in which ''Mike Tyson bit off Evander Holyfield's ear,'' and declared, ''Let the spin begin.''
In the media center, the spin had begun in earnest by late afternoon. A group of Bush's fellow Republican governors - including Massachusetts' Paul Cellucci, Michigan's John Engler, and New York's George E. Pataki - paraded through the media assemblage as did Gore campaign chairman William Daley. Many of the journalists gathering in Boston to watch the Bush-Gore face-off said they were looking for the two candidates to face different challenges.
''Bush, I think he has to show capacity,'' said NBC's ''Meet the Press'' host Tim Russert. ''Gore has to show character and credibility.'' Newsweek senior editor and MSNBC contributor Jonathan Alter made that point this way: ''Gore sometimes speaks as if his audience is full of people for whom English is a second language. Bush sometimes speaks as if English is his second language.''
Some analysts say they believe there is a disconnect between journalists and voters when it comes to assessing these events.
''I do think if you watch in the hall, you get a very different sense than if you watch on television,'' said Gergen. Yesterday, Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy released a study concluding that while journalists tend to scrutinize debates for winners and losers, voters look first to see which candidate seems ''big enough'' for the office.
So how influential are the post-mortems that fill the TV airwaves?
''I don't think it affects the voters' perceptions very much. It's like describing an accident to an eyewitness,'' said Ed Fouhy, executive producer of the 1988 and 1992 presidential debates. ''I really don't know,'' added Gergen. ''I'm convinced people go more with their gut.''
