CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. - President Clinton and a host of high-level aides descended on this historic lakeside retreat yesterday afternoon to begin a three-day cram session for the first presidential debate, with Clinton said to be filled with "apprehension" because his preparations are behind schedule.
White House aides only partly succeeded at keeping straight faces as they carried out the ritual of trying to lower pre-debate expectations for their candidate. Clinton has been so busy searching for peace in the Middle East, they said, that he has scarcely had time to study for Sunday night's nationally televised encounter with Republican Bob Dole.
Clinton-Gore campaign spokesman Joe Lockhart said Clinton is worried because Dole, who returned to Florida yesterday to resume debate preparations after campaigning in Tennessee and criticizing Clinton's conduct of foreign policy, has been "working at this for about nine days." White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta told reporters on Air Force One "it would be silly for us to underestimate" Dole's forensic talents.
While some of the low-balling is done with tongue in cheek, Clinton's side is genuinely worried. Dole's reputation for clipped speech and sometimes hard-to-follow sentences, combined with Clinton's reputation as a politician with a gift for gab, has skewed the expectations of how each side will perform, aides said. With Clinton far ahead in the polls, so the logic goes, he has little to gain from the occasion.
White House political director Doug Sosnik said earlier this week that in most recent presidential elections, the candidate who was behind in the polls prior to the debate narrowed the margin after it.
White House senior adviser George Stephanopoulos, arguing that Dole is better in debate than most people realize, offered a revisionist version of history about the first time Dole took a national stage to debate when running for vice president in 1976. The common story is that Dole lost badly to Democrat Walter Mondale with an impolitic remark about this century's military conflicts being "Democrat wars." But Stephanopoulos said he was recently reviewing video tapes and found Dole performing very well until that one off-key comment.
If Clinton stumbles this time, it won't be for lack of briefing materials. For weeks, aides have been preparing thick binders filled with policy papers, statistics, Dole criticisms and recommended responses. The plan, according to White House press secretary Michael McCurry, is that Clinton will study these the next two mornings, take afternoons off for golf or other recretation, and then each night at 9 begin a practice debate. This will get his "body clock oriented in the right direction," McCurry said.
Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, a Maine Democrat, has been brought in to play Dole. White House officials, including National Economic Adviser Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Counsel Jack Quinn, policy advisers Rahm Emanuel, Bruce Reed and Gene Sperling will help in the preparations. Debate consultant Michael Sheehan, who worked on past national campaigns for Bruce Babbitt, Michael S. Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen, is also on hand.
Panetta said the campaign is "obviously" expecting Dole to attack Clinton's character, and Quinn and campaign pollster Mark Penn are helping prepare for this.
AP PHOTO
President Clinton is embraced by Connie Eve at the Greater Buffalo International Airport in Cheektowga, N.Y., yesterday.