Political Analyst Alan Schroeder.

DATE October 4, 2000 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Political analyst Alan Schroeder discusses last
night's debate and some of the effective scripting of previous
debates
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

When we watch a presidential debate, we hope to see the candidates think on
their feet and express themselves in a reasonably spontaneous manner. But
these days, the candidates and their aides leave as little to chance as
possible, preparing answers to questions they expect to be asked, rehearsing
their off-the-cuff quips.

My guest, Alan Schroeder, has studied the history of TV presidential
debates, including the behind-the-scenes preparations and controversies.
He's
the author of "Presidential Debates: Forty Years of High-Risk TV."
Schroeder
is a former reporter, documentary filmmaker and TV producer who now teaches
at
the School of Journalism at Northeastern University in Boston. I spoke with
him early this morning and asked him first for his reaction to last night's
debate between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush.

Mr. ALAN SCHROEDER (Author, "Presidential Debates: Forty Years of High-Risk
TV"): That was as close to a tie as I think I've ever seen in a
presidential
debate, and I'm not sure that's necessarily a compliment, either.

GROSS: OK. Elaborate on that.

Mr. SCHROEDER: Well, it was a tie because neither one of them seemed to
exactly leap off the screen and make his case particularly well, and that's
what they were supposed to be doing. You know, it's very interesting, this
whole notion of how the debaters prepare and what they're conscious of when
they go into the arena, so to speak, and both of them had worked on the
specific things that, in fact, in the actual debate, they allowed to
manifest,
once again. For instance, Gore was pretty pedantic, and that's the very

thing
that everybody, over and over, has said he ought not to be. And Bush--he
just
seemed so eager to kind of get through his answers and move on to the next
question that he did not add any depth to his image, and that was the thing
that he was told he was supposed to work on. So, you know, it shows you
that
sometimes all this preparation is for naught.

GROSS: The debate stuck pretty closely to details on policy...

Mr. SCHROEDER: Yeah. Yeah, sure.

GROSS: ...and a lot of the disagreements were over numbers. Do you think
that that's what the candidates wanted, or do you think that's the direction
that the moderator, Jim Lehrer, wanted to lead them in?

Mr. SCHROEDER: I think that the substantive nature of that debate is a
reflection of Jim Lehrer as a moderator, because that's what he is known
for,
and that is, in turn, a reflection on the candidates because the candidates
chose him and presumably somewhat on the basis of their knowledge of his,
you
know, sort of moderating that way.

But I also think that they see some percentage in discussing the issues in
front of this kind of core group of undecided voters who hold the fate of
their potential presidencies in their hands. So yeah, I think that it was a
substantive debate, and that was one of the good things about it. If you
didn't know anything about there either man stood on the issues and tuned in
to this debate, I think you would have gotten some knowledge from that.

GROSS: Historically, though, what really makes the biggest impact in a
presidential debate? Is it the issue stuff, or is it, like, the big gaffes
and the witty rejoinders?

Mr. SCHROEDER: Well, I think debates really serve two separate
constituencies who evaluate them in two separate ways. You've got the
voters
as a sort of, you know, generic bloc, and then you've got the media, and
what
the debaters are actually trying to do is play simultaneously to both those
constituencies, because it isn't enough to win the audience. You also have
to
win the media, and those two entities are sort of self-reinforcing with each
other. So in terms of winning the media part of it, the stylistics do tend
to
predominate. In terms of winning the voting bloc, it's more of a
combination
of the substance and the style, because the substance is less familiar to a
lot of the people watching it, whereas to the media, it's not only familiar,
it's overly familiar and therefore, deadly dull.

GROSS: The only attempt that I can recall of a--you know, of a witty
rejoinder last night was when George W. Bush said, in quarrelling with some
of Al Gore's figures, `I'm beginning to think not only did he invent the
Internet, he invented the calculator. It's fuzzy math.' Do you think that
attempt at a witty rejoinder worked?

Mr. SCHROEDER: It worked in the sense that those were the soundbites that
were played on television this morning in the wake of the debate, so clearly
they do devise these moments, understanding that what will happen in the
media
recounting the story is that a sort of abbreviated, compressed narrative of
the event will take place, and that's propelled by these little soundbites.
So absolutely, I think when Bush gets off lines like that, that was his
strategy, and in that sense, it worked.

GROSS: Did it sound pre-scripted to you?

Mr. SCHROEDER: Absolutely. You could just, you know, sort of all but see
the puppet strings moving above his head as he's saying things like that,
just
as with Al Gore, that constant repetition about tax cuts for the wealthiest
1
percent, you know. He may as well have, you know, sort of crawled it in
lettering at the bottom of the screen, they way they do the stock market
updates, because it was so robotic.

GROSS: In, like, the history of presidential debates, have most of the
now-famous witty rejoinders been scripted as well? For instance, `You're no
Kennedy,' and `There you go again.'

Mr. SCHROEDER: Almost all of the famous debate rejoinders in history have
been pre-scripted, despite claims to the contrary, and it does show you the
value of preparation in a way that, you know, if you can go in their with
that
sort of land mine that you're supposed to detonate at a certain point, and
then you're able to do that, that it pays off in the soundbites that you
reap.
So, yeah, you think about `You're no Jack Kennedy,' which seemed like, you
know, such a heartfelt kind of plaintive rejoinder by Lloyd Bentsen, and he
knew that was coming.

GROSS: Yeah. Do the whole thing for us, for people who don't remember that
rejoinder.

Mr. SCHROEDER: Absolutely. The rejoinder was--followed Quayle's
self-comparison to Jack Kennedy. He was making the point that he had a
similar level of congressional experience at the time, at his age, compared
to
Jack Kennedy when he ran for the presidency in 1960, and Lloyd Bentsen says,
`Senator, I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator,
you're no Jack Kennedy.' And it plays out on camera in this sort of series
of
close-ups and two-shots that just devastates Quayle, and Quayle had actually
used that comparison to Jack Kennedy in speeches on the campaign trail.
Bentsen had opposition research operatives in the audience for some of those
events, so they had an inkling that it might be coming, and although Quayle
himself was warned not to do it in the debate, he did, allowing Lloyd
Bentsen
this golden opportunity to just, you know, sock him one in the jaw.

So absolutely--Reagan's lines, `There you go again,' or the joke about `I
won't exploit my opponent's youth and inexperience'--these things clearly
were
devised ahead of time. So it's the fact that the lines are devised, but
also
how well the debater is able to make it seem otherwise, and in both
instances,
Lloyd Bentsen and Ronald Reagan, the performance was what really carried it.

GROSS: For the most part, in last night's debate, both candidates seemed to
stick to their script. And I'm wondering if you think the questions did
anything to force the candidates to really think on their feet; to force
them
off pre-scripted messages?

Mr. SCHROEDER: Well, Al Gore was asked this morning if he had been thrown
any
loops; if there were any questions he hadn't anticipated. And his answer
was,
`No, we did sort of know everything that was coming.' So I would say
apparently not. But I would also make the point that it isn't just the
questions as posed by the moderator. The format itself was quite
constricting
and put the whole debate in sort of a straitjacket, in the sense that you
had
this fairly rigid structure. You had time limits. You had a kind of
ping-pong sequencing of answers and questions. And that, of course, is by
the
candidates' design. They're the ones who make the call on what the format
is
going to be.

But it was interesting to me to hear both of them kind of violate that
format
that they had designed by wanting to press forward in following a line of
argument. And that shows you how kind of random these decisions about
format
are, you know. Here, they devise the rules, and it turns out that those
rules were not the best thing for either one of them.

GROSS: Well, Jim Lehrer didn't stick strictly to the format. He gave the
candidates some latitude to go on longer than they thought; to, like--to
talk
to each other in ways that were supposed to not happen.

Mr. SCHROEDER: Yes, Jim Lehrer did give them some latitude. But he pointed
out on the air, as well he should, `Look, you are the ones who set the
rules.
And if you're comfortable violating them, that's what we're going to do.'
But I guess my point is why don't they just go in and say, `Let's not have
any rules. We know this guy is a capable interviewer. He proves himself on
television every night, and let's just let him ask us some questions.' And
I
think, by the way, that is closer to the format that we will see in the
second debate; the one next week in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where the
two candidates are seated at a table with Lehrer and the time restrictions
don't exist.

GROSS: Is there any precedent for that kind of presidential debate?

Mr. SCHROEDER: No.

GROSS: The two candidates and the moderator sitting around a table?

Mr. SCHROEDER: No, there is not. And that, I think, is what makes it so
interesting because what happens is once a new format is introduced into
presidential debates, it doesn't take the candidates and the campaigns very
long to figure out their way around it. Let me give you an example. The
town-hall format was first used in '92. In '96 it was a little more
restrictive. And this year, it'll be the third debate. But there's a
difference this year in that the questioners must write down their questions
in advance, submit them to Jim Lehrer, who then asks them, thus minimizing
any
potential volatility or even spontaneity on the part of the people in the
audience. That's something the campaigns insisted on. And it shows that
the
longer a format is around, the more easily they are able to maneuver through
that and work it to their advantage.

GROSS: Why do you think that they're trying that new format of the two
candidates and the moderator sitting around the table together?

Mr. SCHROEDER: Well, the sponsors, the Debate Commission, have been
pressing
for that for a long time. There are a lot of people who have studied
debates
who feel that that is sort of the gold standard of potential formats because
it is much more natural. And it does lend itself more to giving insight
into
the minds of the candidates rather than just testing their ability to spit
back funny lines and, you know, sort of scripted messages. So it has been
on
the table for a long time as a possibility. Why the candidates agreed to it
this year? I think George Bush, particularly, liked that format. And, in
fact, when he offered that counterproposal of debates at the beginning of
September, that was the format he wanted for everything. And Al Gore also
has done extraordinarily well in that format. So, once again, it's about do
the candidates think that it's in their self interest to adhere to something
new? And in this case, they did.

GROSS: Do you know if, in the next presidential format where they're
sitting
around the table, if there are going to be time restrictions on the length
of
answers?

Mr. SCHROEDER: My understanding is that there are not. And that will give
Jim Lehrer a much freer reign to follow particular lines of questioning.
And
also, it opens up the possibility for the candidates to question each other,
which they were not able to do last night. They had to kind of, you know,
send everything back to Lehrer as a conduit. So that's going to be, I
think,
very interesting; to see how they engage one another, because, you know,
this
whole thing about what works in a debate, what doesn't work--it isn't just
the individual performance of the debater, it's that performance in relation
to the other debater and, sort of, who seizes control and who's the star and
who's the co-star. So we'll see what happens. But I have high hopes for
that
new format.

GROSS: Did you watch the debate last night on TV?

Mr. SCHROEDER: I did.

GROSS: How did you choose which network to watch it on? Did you think it
made a difference one way or another?

Mr. SCHROEDER: That--very good question. I, like I suspect a lot of people
in America, sat there with my remote commander at the ready and was flipping
around purposely to compare how different networks were doing it. And I did
see a lot of variety. It used to be that there would just be one version of
the production pool-fed to all the networks, and they carried that. But
what's happening now is they actually send out what they call ISOCAMs, the
individual shots of the candidates as well as a master shot. And that
allows
each network to sort of cut its own version of the debate. So there
actually
was quite a bit of variety. And that's something that drives the campaigns
crazy. They don't like that. They like the idea that they can control that
image rather than leaving that in the hands of the networks. So I see that,
in some small way, as a victory over the handlers, because at least you have
the potential for some variety.

So I--my network of preference is actually C-SPAN. That's what I watched
right before the debate because I like that notion of kind of the natural
sound. And I like seeing the wives come out ahead of time and Jim Lehrer's
admonitions to the audience. So I think all of that is pretty fascinating.
But once I'm in the debate, I flip around to see how the different networks
are actually cutting it.

GROSS: My guest is Alan Schroeder, author of "Presidential Debates: 40
Years of High-Risk TV." We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Alan Schroeder, and he's the
author of the new book "Presidential Debates: 40 Years of High-Risk TV."

In your book "Presidential Debates," you write that the solo moderator and
the town-hall forum have revolutionized the nature of presidential debates.
Last night we saw an example of the solo moderator approach. What's
revolutionary about that? Why is that so important?

Mr. SCHROEDER: Well, what was revolutionary about it when they were first
introduced, and, of course, the longer something is extant, the less
revolutionary it is. So we're kind of a that point here in 2000. But in
'92
when those things were first introduced, they broke a hold on format of the
press panel that had been in effect since 1960. And again, that's because
the candidates themselves took comfort in knowing that it was, you know, the
same old format of four reporters at a desk and a moderator and boom, boom,
boom, down the line. Ask your question and let's get on to something else.

And so for the longest time the candidates resisted any innovation in
formats. So in '92, when the town-hall format was introduced--and, by the
way, we can thank Bill Clinton for that. That was his idea--and the single
moderator as well, that broke this pattern of institutionalization of the
debate formats that made it revolutionary. And, as you rightly suggest,
there wasn't anything terribly revolutionary about last night's debate. So,
you know, maybe it's time to think of some new format things.

GROSS: Jim Lehrer's questions stuck, you know, mostly to the big issues.
Some of the most famous questions, historically, are questions that were
really odd, in their own way, like Bernard Shaw's question to Dukakis that
if
his wife, Kitty, had been raped and murdered, would he want to see the
perpetrator executed. And it was, you know, basically, an anecdotal
approach
to the death-penalty question. Now is that considered to have been very
good
or just a very strange question? Have you talked to a lot of journalists
about--and a lot of presidential aides about what they think of that
question?

Mr. SCHROEDER: Well, you know what's interesting about that is on Thursday
night in the vice presidential debate this year, the moderator is going to
be
none other than Bernard Shaw. And the moderator is chosen by the campaigns.
So I think that their granting him their seal of approval shows you that the
campaigns aren't too worried about him asking another bizarre question like
that.

At the time, the reaction ran sort of all across the spectrum. But as the
years go on, I think people are more and more sort of put off by that
question. Kitty, herself, was quite unhappy with it, as one might imagine.
And the three other panelists in that debate in 1988 were--all happened to
be
women. And they actually tried to talk Bernard Shaw out of asking it that
way. They said, you know, `Look, ask it in a generic way. Don't say the
words "Kitty Dukakis." Don't personalize it.' And he felt that there was
something to be gained; some insight into Michael Dukakis to be gained by
personalizing it. And so he chose to do that. But I think, you know,
everybody sort of had this moment of, you know, `Ew, what was that?' when he
asked that question.

GROSS: What are some of the other most famous questions that have been
asked?

Mr. SCHROEDER: Well, there are a lot of kind of these zinger questions.
And
I don't know that they're necessarily the most famous. But one of my
favorites was in 1984 when Fred Barnes asked Ronald Reagan, you know--he
said
something like, `You call yourself a born-again Christian. You consider
yourself a religious man. So why is that you don't go to church?' And it
seems like such a, you know--kind of almost a nasty thing. But it does show
you that sometimes debates are about pointing out that the emperor has no
clothes. And we don't get too many chances in our civic life to do that.
So
the debates fill an important role in that regard.

Let's see, there was--there's been this trend toward--and I think the first
example of this was in the Bentsen-Quayle debate--this trend toward asking
people what their favorite book, film, you know, work of art kind of thing
is.
And that's almost run its course because, of course, now they're prepared
with
these very suspicious answers; these suspiciously convenient answers that
kind
of pump up their intellectual prowess.

In the first town-hall debate in history in Richmond, Virginia, in 1992,
where
you had Bush, Clinton and Perot as the candidates, the people in that
audience
asked some of the most interesting questions and the most non-journalistic
questions--things like, `Why do you spend so much time trashing each others'
character when what we really want you to is the job of presidency?'--and
sort
of forced them to respond to something that people have been feeling
viscerally for a long time but that fell outside the kind of accepted
boundaries of journalistic interrogation. And so, you know, I think that
there is some value in having different people ask questions.

And frankly, I admire Jim Lehrer a lot and I think he's a terrific
interviewer, but I would like to have seen this year different moderators
for
each of the debates on the theory that you get new information from
different
questioners, not to mention different formats, in that the more variety
there
is, the more educational and informative the debates have the potential to
be.

GROSS: When there were panels of journalists questioning the candidates,
did
the panelists usually coordinate their questions so there's two people who
didn't ask the same thing, didn't come prepared with the same question?

Mr. SCHROEDER: Some panelists did collaborate and others studiously avoided
it. And it was kind of interesting in going back over the years and talking
to panelists to kind of pick up on the wide variety of arrangements that
existed on panels. There were a couple of panels that, at one point,
debated
the possibility of throwing the candidates for a total loop and just saying,
`Look, we don't like this format. Why don't you guys just talk to each
other?' And doing that on live television. And, of course, that never
actually happened. But wouldn't it have been fascinating if it had?

The panel in the 1988 Bentsen-Quayle debate, one of the reasons that Dan
Quayle backed himself into that corner in comparing himself to John F.
Kennedy
was that the panelists had agreed that if they did not get a satisfactory
answer that they would follow up on each other's questions until it was
answered in a satisfactory way. And so Quayle was actually asked several
times by several different panelists: Why are you qualified to ascend to
the
presidency should you be required to do that? And that's how he got into
that
kind of contortion of comparing himself to John F. Kennedy.

So I think that some of the best debates are a reflection of a team effort
by
the panelists, and probably that's one reason that the candidates have begun
to shy away from that format. They know the journalists are capable of
behaving that way.

GROSS: Alan Schroeder is the author of "Presidential Debates: Forty Years
of
High-Risk TV." He'll be back in the second half of the show. I'm Terry
Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

(Credits)

GROSS: This is NPR, National Public Radio.

Coming up, lighting, make-up, hair and camera angles. We continue our
conversation with Alan Schroeder about last night's Gore-Bush showdown and
the
history of TV presidential debates. And Kevin Whitehead reviews the new CD
from Branford Marsalis, which we're listening to now.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Let's get back to our conversation about last night's face-off between Al
Gore
and George W. Bush and how it fits into the history of TV presidential
debates. My guest Alan Schroeder is the author of the new book,
"Presidential
Debates: Forty Years of High-Risk TV." He's a former reporter, documentary
filmmaker and TV producer who now teaches in the School of Journalism at
Northeastern University in Boston.

We've been talking a lot about, you know, content and format. But let's
face
it, one of the really important things about a TV debate is how the
candidates
look. And you know, lighting and makeup are two really important things.
And
everybody learned that lesson back in 1960 with the Kennedy-Nixon debates.
What did you think of the lighting last night and the makeup?

Mr. SCHROEDER: Well, I'm glad you asked that question because I was sort of
struck by a couple of strange things just in the basic shots of the
candidates. One was that Al Gore, his makeup job sort of reminded me--you
know, they used to have those little ventriloquist dolls called Jerry
Mahoney
where he was this little puppet who had real rosy cheeks. I kind of had
that
image in my head of Al Gore. He looked almost doll-like--his lighting and
his
facial makeup and that sort of thing.

The other thing that struck me visually looking at the contrast of the two
candidates was how much more imposing Gore seemed just physically. He
seemed
to fill the frame a little more than Bush did. And when they would cut over
Bush, he seemed sort of slight. And he just didn't occupy the space as
presumptively as Gore did. And that's not a lighting trick, I don't know
exactly what that is. But it happened before with Reagan and Carter. You
know, Reagan was the sort of well-built broad-shouldered guy and Carter was
this much slighter figure. And then when they would cut back and forth to
the
two of them, you became aware of that physical difference. And I suppose
it's
dangerous to overconclude from that, but there is some kind of message being
sent there.

GROSS: This was probably just my imagination, but I thought that the
lighting
changed a few minutes into the debate last night. I thought that early on
Al
Gore's complexion looked very sallow and that Bush's complexion looked
really
quite rosy. And that the lighting changed a little bit a little further in
and Gore looked less sallow. That was probably completely my imagination.
Probably didn't happen at all, but...

Mr. SCHROEDER: It may have been an optical illusion. I can't imagine.
Once
the thing is in progress, they're not going to start changing much of
anything because...

GROSS: Well, that was my question: Are there, like, aides behind the
scenes
who are saying, `No, you blew it on the lighting. You've got to turn up the
light, or turn down the light, or refocus the light'?

Mr. SCHROEDER: In years past--and this is all negotiated, this is all in a
written contract--the campaigns have been allowed to have a representative
in
the control room during the live production of the debate, much to the
dismay
of the director who's sitting in there trying to do his job. But in
practice,
they haven't really posed too many demands. I mean, for one thing, look,
the
train is headed down the tracks. And once the locomotive has left the
station, there's not a heck of a lot you can do about it.

Really the year where that was true where you had campaign aides in the
control room literally yelling at each other and at the director was in 1960
in the first debate. And it had to do with the cutaway shots of Nixon when
he
was wasn't speaking. And you would see him mopping his brow and sort of his
eyes darting around in kind of strange directions. And Kennedy's man in the
control booth was saying, `Let's get more reaction shots of Nixon. Let's
get
more reaction shots of Nixon.' 'Cause it was to their advantage. And
Nixon's
people were saying, `No, no, no, quit taking that shot.'

But in more recent times, they're allowed to have a representative in the
control room, but not much arguing goes on. And how could it? You know,
somebody has a job to do. You're live. You can't possibly negotiate
something while it's happening in front of 70 million people.

GROSS: Well, you write that in the Reagan-Mondale debate, Michael Deaver,
one of Reagan's aides, wanted Reagan lit differently than he had been lit.
And that had a bad effect on how Mondale ended up looking.

Mr. SCHROEDER: That's right. And as a result of that...

GROSS: Well, tell us the story.

Mr. SCHROEDER: Yes. What happened was there were two debates in 1984. In
the first one, Reagan's lighting was not terribly good and it did not favor
him. And Reagan looked bad for a number of reasons in that debate--but
lighting was one of them. So when they go to Kansas City for the second
debate for 1984, Michael Deaver, Reagan's aide, makes certain that the
lighting is changed. And he actually lit Reagan from above to kind of cast
this line across his shoulders in a way that absolutely favored Reagan and
absolutely made Mondale look funereal. And that lighting change was made
after the Mondale people had left the hall, and apparently, against their
wishes and in violation of some of the prenegotiated rules. And in years
since then, the candidates have made absolute certain to not allow that to
happen again. And so, lighting once it's set does not change.

GROSS: Both candidates last night wore dark suits and red ties. They were
very closely dressed. Is there any common wisdom about that outfit, the
dark
suit, the red tie? I guess nobody's gonna come in wearing red sharkskin
suit
to the presidential debate, but...

Mr. SCHROEDER: No, no, no. I think from a fashion standpoint the debates
are sort of the anti-Academy Awards. It's not dressed to bring attention to
yourself. It's dressed to not have Joan Rivers make any comments about you
afterwards whatsoever. Yeah, wasn't that curious. It does show you that
the
campaigns are operating in isolation in advance of the debate. And one
wonders, you know, what were they thinking when they walked there and
noticed
each what the other was wearing. You know, red, white and blue. You've got
the kind of patriotic thing. It worked with the set. You've got that sort
of
power tie thing going. It's funny. I was watching some of the post-debate
commentary and one of the interviewees was Dick Cheney, who had on that same
identical outfit as well. Only Joe Lieberman of the four of them
demonstrated
any sort of sartorial originality.

GROSS: And there was a blue backdrop behind the candidates, a very TV blue.
You say that in the Ford and Carter debate, their aides battled over the
shade
of blue for the backdrop.

Mr. SCHROEDER: They did.

GROSS: Was that an issue in last night's debate, do you think?

Mr. SCHROEDER: No. The blue background is designed, obviously, to be as
generic as it can possibly be. And, yes, it does, it almost looks like one
of
those blue Chromakey screens...

GROSS: Exactly. Exactly.

Mr. SCHROEDER: ...that the TV weatherman stands in front of.

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. SCHROEDER: You expected Al Gore to start, you know, pointing to the
high-pressure area over El Paso. But I think they want as minimalist a
background as possible so that people will pay attention to them and not the
background. In 1976, the blueness of the background had to do with Gerald
Ford's thinning hair. The Ford aides thought that Gerald Ford's hair looked
even thinner against a certain shade of blue and, therefore, wanted
something
that they thought would take care of that. I would say, after height, hair
is
probably the number two issue in prenegotiating presidential debates.

GROSS: Hair?

Mr. SCHROEDER: Well, yeah, because, you know, who's not paranoid about hair
when you go on television? And I'm thinking of George Bush. He needed to
stand on a certain side of the stage because of the side of his head that
his
part was on, and he sort of felt that the hairline was appearing to recede
too
much if he was on a certain half of the stage as opposed to the other.

GROSS: My guest is Alan Schroeder, author of "Presidential Debates: Forty
Years of High-Risk TV." We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Alan Schroeder, author of the
new book "Presidential Debates: Forty Years of High-Risk TV."

Now no third-party candidates were invited to debate last night. Ralph
Nader
managed to get a ticket to the debate, but he was barred from the door by a
member of the Commission on Presidential Debates, and that person said,
`It's
already been decided that whether or not you have a ticket, you are not
welcome in the debate.' Is there any precedent for that?

Mr. SCHROEDER: No, I don't think there is. Usually they just file their
lawsuits. They don't physically show up and try to crash the debate. And
wouldn't that have been fascinating, had he somehow gotten into the debate
hall? You know, these moments that never were.

No, I can't think of an instance in which someone who has been excluded from
the debates tried to insinuate himself physically. There was an interesting
thing in 1980. John Anderson was the third-party candidate that year, the
Independent candidate that year, and he was not invited to join the
Carter-Reagan debate. So what CNN did was actually set up this program by
which they electronically inserted his answers to the live debate, as it was
unfolding in Cleveland. But what happened was they got the tapes all mixed
up, and so Anderson would be answering a question that hadn't actually been
asked yet in the other debate. And it became this kind of very bizarre, you
know, inadvertently post-modern version of a presidential debate.

GROSS: What are the commission's rules for deciding which third-party
candidates should be allowed to participate in the presidential debates?

Mr. SCHROEDER: This year the main criterion for inclusion of third-party
and
Independent candidates was a 15 percent standing in the public opinion
polls,
and the sponsoring commission is very cautious about this question because
they lay themselves open to lawsuits, and so they're trying to devise some
means that is legal and that they can win in court on because they are
inevitably taken to court on these things. Frankly, 15 percent seems high
to
me, and I don't know that this was necessarily the year that either Nader or
Buchanan ought to have been included, but I'm a little uneasy with 15
percent
and wonder if there might be a more inclusive way of doing this.

GROSS: Who's on the commission?

Mr. SCHROEDER: The commission was started by the two parties in 1988. It
became a non-partisan commission a few years later. And it has
members--different civic leaders and academics, and I believe Caroline
Kennedy
Schlossberg is on the board, the former head of the League of Women Voters.
So it has a membership across the spectrum, but what makes a lot of people
uneasy about the commission is its history as a bipartisan organization
chaired by the two former chairs of the Democratic and Republican Parties.

GROSS: Bipartisan in the sense that it's the two major parties, and there
aren't any third-party representatives, so the commission is seen as
representing the major parties and, therefore, more likely to eliminate the
third-party candidates.

Mr. SCHROEDER: Yes, that's right. And the only time that a third-party
candidate has been allowed to participate was in 1992. You had both Ross
Perot and Admiral Stockdale participating in that year's debates and
appropriately so. I'm really torn on this question because I think that we
have so few opportunities to evaluate the people who are likely to get voted
that to, you know, kind of dilute that with additional people in the debate
might not be such a great idea. And I'm thinking during the primary
debates,
George W. Bush was always surrounded by a lot of other candidates, until the
very end, but he never did a one-on-one with John McCain. And I think
voters
were deprived of something by not having that.

So maybe the answer is to start the debate season a little earlier, do more
debates, kind of begin with everybody and winnow the field as it goes along.
It's a question that, obviously, is going to have to be revisited and
probably
will be every four years.

GROSS: How influential, finally, are presidential debates?

Mr. SCHROEDER: They actually have been influential, maybe not even so much
at
the ballot box, but they've been influential as civic institutions, and
they've definitely been influential as history and as historical comments on
particular candidates. John F. Kennedy thought that television, in
general--he didn't say debates, but he said, `We wouldn't have had a prayer
without that gadget,' referring to television, and really credited the
medium
with his election.

But as far as a direct attribution or a direct cause-and-effect link between
a
particular debate and someone's election, I don't think we can make that,
but
I do think that debates sort of leave an imprint on the candidate and
particularly for candidates who want to run for office in the future. The
Dan
Quayle example, again, serves us well here because that whole `You're no
Jack
Kennedy' thing, you know, that just hung over his head, along with the
`potato' misspelling and all of these other little silly things in such a
way
that made him less credible as a candidate down the line. So they do have
repercussions, for the participants, that the participants have to live with
for a long time.

GROSS: You mentioned Quayle's performance as a vice presidential candidate.
The next debate is the vice presidential debate on Thursday. Tell us what
you're expecting with that, you know, formatwise and what you're going to be
looking for.

Mr. SCHROEDER: Well, that actually is the introduction of this format, the
moderator and the candidates sitting around a table. And it's interesting
that the vice presidential people are doing it a few days before the
presidential's. My guess is the reason that it was negotiated and
structured
that way is to give Gore and Bush a chance to kind of hone their
preparations
and get an idea of what to expect from that format. In effect, Lieberman
and
Cheney are being used as guinea pigs for this format. But having said that,
I
actually have high hopes for it.

Vice presidential debates often are more animated and interesting than the
presidential debates because there's a little less at stake, they're kind of
more relaxed, and often they get a little more negative because the job of
the
vice presidential candidate traditionally is to go on the attack against the
top of the ticket on the opposition, and it's much easier for Joe Lieberman
to
criticize George Bush in absentia than it was for Gore to go after him when
he's just standing there a few feet away, and such a thing would look
unseemly. So with the presidential candidates absent, the vice presidential
candidates are almost liberated to lodge their slings and arrows a little
more
readily.

GROSS: Television has broadcast presidential debates over the course of 40
years. How do you think our expectations of presidential speaking style in
these debates have changes? You know, what we expect of the candidates both
in terms of the language they use, what we expect of the charisma that they
exude.

Mr. SCHROEDER: Oh, I think a great deal has changed on that count, and, in
fact, you know, what we're looking at is a whole different level of
communication from the 1960 era even. In such a relatively short time, the
expectations of how presidents talk to the country have changed. This thing
last night, for instance, of each of the two men citing individual Americans
by name and telling their stories, it's this emphasis on the kind of
personal
narrative. Kennedy and Nixon would never have done that. That's a
reflection
of our own times in the more empathetic, sort of touchy-feely culture that
we
live in.

I think also that Bill Clinton changed this whole notion of presidential
debating for everyone, and one of the reasons I personally felt let down
last
night, I can't help but think, is that, you know, there's a new standard to
meet, and Clinton was the best debater in history. And neither of these
guys
came close to him, either on stylistics or just in being able to articulate
their positions.

So I think that we expect more from our candidates. We expect a higher
level
of telegenic quality. You know, you're looking at these candidates, and
you're thinking, `I've got to live with this person on the newscasts for the
next four years, and please don't bore me to death before I've even voted
for
you.' Richard Nixon himself said that the only thing that you weren't
allowed
to be in politics was dull, and dullness is the enemy of television, just as
it's the enemy of politics. So, yeah, they must perform at a higher level
than they used to have to.

GROSS: Why did you want to write a book on presidential debates?

Mr. SCHROEDER: I spent a lot of time producing live television at local
stations around the country, and, you know, I saw some of the things that
could go wrong on live TV. I once had a guest die on me five minutes before
air. That was actually my very first job in television, and I decided
nothing
would ever frighten me in my entire life again. And I had a riot break out
one time on live television in a studio audience, and it just got me
thinking
how utterly unpredictable live TV, in general, is and how at odds that is
with
the whole notion of how people campaign for presidency, which is to just
coat
themselves in as many layers of protection as they possibly can.

So I was always interested in politics, and I've always had this kind of
fascination with live TV and its pitfalls and its perils. And so I put
those
together and started, in 1988, really studying this thing and thinking hard
about it, and I think I chose the right topic because I'm still not bored
with
it. After all these years and all this babbling about it, it still has the
capacity to fascinate me, although if we see a lot more debates like last
night's, that could change.

GROSS: Alan Schroeder, thank you so much for talking with us.

Mr. SCHROEDER: Thank you.

GROSS: Alan Schroeder is the author of "Presidential Debates: Forty Years
of
High-Risk TV." He teaches in the School of Journalism at Northeastern
University in Boston.

Coming up, Kevin Whitehead reviews Branford Marsalis' new CD.

This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: Branford Marsalis' new CD, "Contemporary Jazz"
TERRY GROSS, host:

Saxophonist Branford Marsalis made a name for himself in the early 1980s as
a
member of his younger brother, Wynton's, quintet. A few years later, he
started his own bands. In the early '90s, Branford was Jay Leno's first
band
leader on "The Tonight Show" and then started making jazz hip-hop records
with
his group Buckshot Lefonque. He's also made a lot of acoustic jazz albums.
Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says the saxophonist was never in a hurry to
develop his own style, but in the last few years, he's arrived.

(Soundbite of Branford Marsalis jazz performance)

KEVIN WHITEHEAD reporting:

Branford Marsalis' new album is called "Contemporary Jazz." That title is
the
only blah thing about it. For the most part, it's exactly what
straight-ahead
jazz should be: tough and inventive, with a pulse. Branford's quartet
makes
real group music. It's not about a soloist fronting a rhythm section, but
everybody working together to push the music ahead.

The opener, "In The Crease," is a tricky pile-up of fast-changing time
signatures, but the great drummer Jeff Watts, in particular, makes the
algebra
sound like spontaneous accents, not stunt work.

(Soundbite of music from "In The Crease")

WHITEHEAD: The rest of Marsalis' quartet is stealthy bassist Eric Revis and
pianist Joey Calderazzo, who's a bit too fond of old McCoy Tyner and Herbie
Hancock routines.

Most of the tunes on the new CD are by members of the band, but its
centerpiece is a comb-over of Irving Berlin's "Cheek To Cheek." Marsalis
restyles the melody from the opening bar, a cheeky strategy. You're going
to
rewrite Irving Berlin? But he gets away with it, maybe because he sounds so
eager to twist the tune to his own ends.

(Soundbite of music from Marsalis' version of "Cheek To Cheek")

WHITEHEAD: A lot of highly touted, young jazz musicians have come and gone
in
the two decades Branford Marsalis has been around; he just turned 40. For a
long time, he was content to impersonate his saxophone heroes, all of whom
are
more readily identifiable than he is. But the voice he has evolved on tenor
saxophone really suits him, and he can do a lot with it. Mostly, he
improvises like the quick and quick-witted person he is.

On his new album, Marsalis spends so much time playing at fast tempos, he
wears some folks out. But it's not all he does.

(Soundbite of music from "Sleepy Hollow")

WHITEHEAD: That blues--it's called "Sleepy Hollow"--appears unbilled on
Branford Marsalis' new CD, tucked away after the official ending, a little
surprise which I have now spoiled. Sneaking it in like that is typical of
the
artist. Just when you think you've seen all his cards, he pulls out another
ace.

GROSS: Kevin Whitehead is the author of "New Dutch Swing." He reviewed
"Contemporary Jazz," the new CD by saxophonist Branford Marsalis.

(Credits given)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.