Co-Stars on Center Stage

By William R. Doerner

A close battle for best performance in a supporting role

As political theater, last week's debate between Vice-Presidential Candidates George Bush and Geraldine Ferraro had two things going for it: a bankable historical precedent and last-minute word of mouth. All along it was to be the first time that a woman contender for national office had trod on the dueling ground of televised debate. Then, after Ronald Reagan's unexpectedly weak performance against Walter Mondale, the match-off between running mates also became a potential benchmark scoring opportunity for Democrat Ferraro. The challengers had a chance to claim two underdog victories in quick succession and keep their comeback momentum rolling.

Unlike the general agreement on a Mondale triumph after the first presidential debate, the verdict in the vice-presidential contest depended on who was making the judgment. The initial quickie polls, while hardly reliable, confirmed the perceptions of most political analysts: Bush came out slightly ahead overall, and women viewers split about evenly between the two candidates. Four out of the seven members of a panel of debate judges assembled by the Associated Press gave Bush an outright win, while one thought Ferraro had eked out a victory and two scored the match as a tie. Both performances had been sufficiently credible for the candidates' backers to claim a win. Said G.O.P. Campaign Manager Edward Rollins: "The Vice President did extremely well." Countered Ferraro Campaign Manager John Sasso: "She went toe-to-toe with the Vice President of the United States and not only held her own but distinguished herself."

Despite his easy familiarity with national security and foreign affairs, the Vice President committed more factual gaffes than Ferraro. Early on in the debate he seemed so wildly overcharged in his delivery that Ferraro aides watching him on television derisively demanded that he be given a saliva test.

By contrast, Ferraro, the three-term Congresswoman from Queens, was uncharacteristically subdued in her speaking style, making an obvious effort to soften a sometimes barking delivery for television. Her sharp-tongued sparkle plays well to partisans, but rankles many undecided voters. Yet Ferraro did cast the most telling blows of the debate, at one point effectively admonishing the Vice President for being "patronizing" toward her on a foreign affairs issue.

Bush was unwavering in his support for Reagan's policies, admitting only minor differences with the President on the issue of abortion: while Reagan supports a constitutional amendment that would protect unborn fetuses except when the mother's life is threatened, the Vice President would add rape and incest as grounds for ending a pregnancy. Although in 1980 he labeled Reagan's tax and spending programs "voodoo economics," Bush now insisted he was fully behind Reaganomics. "Of course I support the President's economic program, and I support him in everything else," said Bush. Then, going on the offensive with a reminder that Mondale has disavowed programs like the Soviet grain embargo, which he supported as Vice President, Bush added: "And I'm not sure ... if I didn't, I'd go doing what Mr. Mondale has done with Jimmy Carter: jump away from him."

Bush got himself in trouble by attempting to take credit for supporting civil rights measures that the Administration had at first opposed. President Reagan signed the longest extension of the Voting Rights Act in its history, Bush pointed out, and his Administration has pursued more civil rights cases than its predecessor "by far." Reagan did indeed sign the voting rights extension, agreed Ferraro, but only after the Senate had passed it by an overwhelming majority over Reagan's initial opposition. As for the civil rights cases, she declared sarcastically, "the reason they enforced them [is] because under the law they're required to do that. And I'm delighted that the Administration is following the law."

The Vice President was wrong in some of his other claims of Administration accomplishments. In discussing poverty in the U.S., Bush claimed, "Human-resources spending is way, way up. Immunization programs are up." Ferraro quickly called him on those assertions, correctly pointing out that poor people's programs "suffered considerably under this Administration's first budget cuts," some of which were later restored. But in a debate that was weighed down, if anything, by too many statistics, Ferraro failed in this instance to back her rebuttal with numbers. Thus Bush was able to retort: "Spending for food stamps is way, way up under the Reagan Administration ... and I am not going to be found wrong on that." In fact, fewer children can be immunized with federal funds in 1984 than in 1981. As for food stamps, federal spending in 1984 was only slightly above the 1981 level, and Reagan unsuccessfully sought to cut the program drastically.

The only light moments of the debate were generated in the unlikely context of the two candidates' problems with personal finances. Ferraro once again claimed that faulty work by a longtime family accountant was responsible for the many revisions required in her tax and mandatory financial disclosure forms, after they were subjected to scrutiny. "I have hired a marvelous [new] accountant," said Ferraro. "He will be doing my taxes over the next eight years while we are in the White House." Bush, who recently disclosed that the IRS had presented him with a bill for $198,000 in back taxes and interest, allowed as how "I'd like to get his name and phone number." Parried Ferraro: "I warn you, he's expensive."

The most riveting exchange of the evening was provoked by a question about terrorism, an issue injected into the campaign by the car bombing of the U.S. embassy annex in Beirut a month ago. Ferraro noted Reagan's acceptance as Commander in Chief of responsibility for that and previous attacks against U.S. installations in Lebanon. "I'd like to know what that means," demanded Ferraro. "Are we going to take proper precautions before we put Americans in situations where they're in danger, or are we just going to walk away?" In reply, Bush sought to contrast the difficulty of dealing with the anonymous terrorism practiced in Lebanon with the Carter Administration's failure to counter state-supported terrorism during ;the hostage crisis in Iran. Said the Vice President, in an ill-chosen tone of condescension: "Let me help you with the difference, Mrs. Ferraro, between Iran and the embassy in Lebanon." He then made a provocative and untrue charge, accusing Mondale and Ferraro of suggesting that U.S. military casualties in Lebanon had "died in shame."

In a quiet fury, Ferraro shot back, "Let me just say, first of all, that I almost resent, Vice President Bush, your patronizing attitude that you have to teach me about foreign policy." Furthermore, she said, "no one has ever said that those young men who were killed through the negligence of this Administration and others ever died in shame." Chastened or not, Bush had no rejoinder to either point.

The Vice President clearly savored playing world states man. He recalled his role in seeking a treaty banning chemical weapons, adding that it was the Soviets who said, "Nyet, nyet, nyet!" His paeans to Reagan's leadership reached almost absurd heights in discussing his meeting last month with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. "I wish everybody could have seen that one, the President giving the facts to Gromyko in all of those nuclear meetings excellent, right on top of the subject matter," gushed Bush. "And I'll bet you that Gromyko went back to the Soviet Union saying, 'Hey, listen, this "I almost President is calling the shots-we'd better move.' " The notion of the hardened Gromyko saying anything remotely similar to that would be laughable, were it not also a reminder that Bush evidently felt it necessary to insist so fervently that Reagan was in control of U.S. arms-control policy. That crucial but complex field is frequently cited, even by some within the Administration, as one in which the President has failed to seek or gain much expertise.

Ferraro unaccountably let that point pass. Instead she chose to attack Bush's argument that Reagan has not met with the top Kremlin official during his presidency because there have been three Communist Party chiefs in quick succession, precluding a stable Soviet leadership that could engage in fruitful dialogue. During the same period, argued Ferraro, the top Soviet officials did manage to meet with many other "world leaders," including French President Franc,ois Mitterrand, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Greek Cypriot President Spyros Kyprianou. Bush had no trouble deflecting that barb. "Well, I think there is quite a difference between Mr. Kyprianou of Cyprus and the leader of the free world, Ronald Reagan, in terms of meeting," he said.

On one crucial point regarding arms control, Ferraro sought to refute Administration claims. She said that a tentative agreement with the Soviets on intermediate-range nuclear forces, worked out during a private stroll by the two chief negotiators in Geneva and known as the "walk in the woods" solution, had been rejected by the Reagan Administration. Bush denied her assertion, insisting that Moscow had vetoed any deal. In fact, while the deal was scuttled internally by Washing ton, both sides eventually renounced it. Ferraro did not pursue the point.

The Democratic challenger's temper seemed to flare one last time when one of four questioners asked how she would overcome her lack of experience in military affairs. Apparently thinking that the question referred to her lack of military service, Ferraro demanded sharply, "Are you saying that I would have to have fought in a war in order to love peace?" She then went on to answer the broader question, saying that as President she would not hesitate to use "concise and certain retaliation" against any Soviet challenge.

The summations of the two candidates were perhaps their finest moments in terms of laying out the contrasting themes of the two campaigns. Said Bush, speaking to young viewers: "I know what it is to have a dream and have a job and work hard to employ others and really to participate in the American dream . . . We want for you America's greatest gift, and that is opportunity." Ferraro spoke of a patriotism that "is not only a pride in the country as it is, but a pride in this country that is strong enough to meet the challenges of the future."

Besides speaking in more measured tones than usual, Ferraro disconcerted some viewers by frequently lowering her head to refer to notes that she scribbled during Bush's speaking periods, a habit acquired during her courtroom days. The down-and-low delivery was such a departure from her brassy style on the stump, however, that some observers thought she came across as cowed. Chortled Bush's press secretary, Peter Teeley: "Her people took the spark out of her." Yet Ferraro may have been wise to err on the side of caution in modulating her high-octane delivery. Said Ferraro's press secretary, Francis O'Brien: "Everybody already knows she's quick-witted and feisty."

Well before Bush got into hot water over his careless post-debate remark about having "tried to kick a little ass last night," two others on his side had made similar slips. The unlikelier of the pair was Bush's wife Barbara, who rarely talks to the press. On a campaign flight to New York City's Columbus Day parade, however, she declared to two accompanying reporters that she saw nothing wrong with her family's enjoyment of its wealth, as does "that $4 million ... I can't say it but it rhymes with rich." She later apologized to Ferraro for the indiscretion, claiming to the press that the unspoken word was 'witch'. Teeley in handicapping the debate in advance, suggested that Ferraro might appear "too bitchy," later insisting that he used the term as a synonym for "crabby," and not as a sexual slur.

Both candidates had reason to look back on their match as a personal political plus. Bush provided a helping hand to Reagan in one of the few moments of his presidency when he needed it. For her part, Ferraro gained her first national exposure beyond the pressure-cooker experience of the press conference about her personal finances, at which she performed skillfully but was necessarily on the constant defensive. What last week's Philadelphia face-off mainly proved, however, is that vice-presidential candidates end up discussing essentially presidential issues, which are usually more effectively debated by the top the tickets.

-By William R. Doemer. Reported by David Beckwith with Ferraro and Melissa Ludtke with Bush

With reporting by David Beckwith, Melissa Ludtke