he vice presidential debate proved to this pair of eyeballs that the Republicans have their ticket backward.
Dick Cheney, heretofore a mystery to the average voter, was measured, articulate, poised, and experienced in his 90-minute joust with US Senator Joe Lieberman Thursday night from Kentucky. It was justly hailed as a grown-up and civil affair compared with the tractor-pull their ticketmates had waged two nights previous.
In Cheney's case, we seem to have a prime example of the kangaroo ticket, one in which the hind legs are stronger than the front. I'd like to see ace moderator Bernie Shaw referee a debate between Cheney and his not-so-superior superior officer, George W. Bush. My money would be on the grown-up in that matchup, not the boyish Texas guv'nor.
Lieberman was folksy, relaxed, very much the old pro used to the polished banter of cloakroom colloquy. The Democrat made plain from the get-go he wanted no kind of slanging match, invoking his mother, his late father, his wife, Hadassah, a half-dozen times. Just a genial family guy is old Joe, beaming his way through the campaign since lightning struck and Al Gore named him his running mate.
Cheney was the more aggressive, more frequently, but stopped short of crossing that hard-to-define line into being too nasty. Clearly, both Gore and Lieberman were instructed by advisers not to go negative in any concerted fashion. It seems that both the Democratic debaters' game plan was to play it safe and non-offensive, don't risk turning off those swing voters in swing states, just protect what the Democrats seem to think is their lead a month out.
If you look at the Electoral College map, Gore-Lieberman seem to have California and New York safely tucked away, a princely double-digit margin in Pennsylvania, and a firm grip on the Northeast. Today it looks as if Bush will not win any Eastern state north of Virginia save for perhaps New Hampshire.
Bush starts with Texas, and it's my hunch he'll end up taking Florida, though he's had to spend a million a week in his brother's state to stay even or barely slightly ahead. The prairie and mountain states are all Bush's, including maybe even Gore's Tennessee and Bill Clinton's Arkansas, to go with the rest of the South.
But whether it's abortion or the environment, Gore seems to have traction in Oregon and Washington and in the Rust Belt. He is also up in Michigan and Illinois, probably due to Social Security and Medicare. It was telling that Cheney's closing argument ticked off four issues normally ceded to Democrats in national elections - Social Security, Medicare, prescription drug benefits, and education - before he made two more vows considered Republican turf: tax reform and rebuilding the military.
Jovial Joe seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, even when zinged about the Democrats' penchant for scolding Hollywood with one hand and holding out the other palm for campaign contributions. He jabbed Cheney lightly over the latter's possibly $16 million package from the oil supply combine Cheney ran at handsome profit for several years.
Cheney riposted with the hoary conservative bleat that ''the government had absolutely nothing to do with it.'' Will it never occur to our hairy-chested free-marketeering conservative brethren that the oil depletion allowance, the fed's remarkably generous giveaway on energy extraction fees and taxes, and the readiness of the US military to go get oil fields - yeah, Dick, that's ''the government'' too - and a lot of government environmental loopholes are what makes oil men so healthy, wealthy, and unwise?
On my scorecard I gave Cheney the edge in the debate by roughly the same margin I'd given Gore over Bush, around 5-4. Lieberman played more defense, because he seemed so determined not to give offense. The Democrats look as though they are playing to protect a lead going into the fourth quarter. The won't put the ball in the air, afraid to risk alienating swing voters by going negative. Their playbook seems to say you only attack when you're behind.
A big winner was Shaw, whose questioning elicited much more depth and insight than did the inquisition of Jim Lehrer in the Gore-Bush faceoff. The format undoubtedly helped; I am convinced that having the contestants seated close to each other, within glaring distance of a strong moderator, gives voters the best view of how each candidate's mind works at warp speed.
People don't vote for the number two man, except in their home states (and Texans didn't vote for Lloyd Bentsen when he was Michael Dukakis's ticket-mate). But Cheney gave depth and maturity to a GOP ticket that badly needed some. And Lieberman's earnest morality pitch seems to fill a chink in Gore's armor.
The public and the broadcast industry were well served by the VP debate. Let us hope that the high road taken in Kentucky will also have impressed Gore, Bush, and hopefully Lehrer, too. Surely if the masses in Yugoslavia can overthrow their dictator, our two presidential candidates can overthrow the dictates of their handlers and give us a better show than they put on in their first encounter.
I am puzzled why neither Cheney nor Shaw braced Lieberman on his refusal to relinquish his Connecticut Senate seat so another Democrat can take it. If Gore wins, the resigned seat falls to a Republican. This makes Senate Democrats privately furious; if Lieberman has the courage of his handlers' convictions, he should resign the seat; to do otherwise is selfish and callow.
David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.
