ONE DEBATE COACH WILL HAVE A KEEN EYE ON BUSH AND GORE
By Larry Daughtrey
When Al Gore and George W. Bush face off in their first debate Tuesday, the stakes are enormous: with polls showing a virtual dead heat, the presidency and political survival may be at stake.
One Nashvillian will be watching with professional as well as personal interest. Attorney Larry Woods, whose daytime job involves both criminal and business law, moonlights as one of the nation's top debate coaches.
He's helped prep Gore for previous debates, although not this one. Despite Bush's malapropisms and Gore's reputation as a voracious debater, Woods doesn't foresee an easy outing for the Democratic nominee from Tennessee.
Woods expects Bush's personal charm to shine through and says demeanor, not necessarily a command of issues, is the important thing in a presidential debate. His simple advice for the intense Gore: Smile.
Most Democrats and Republicans already have made up their minds, he says, and the election will be decided by wavering independents who are likely to tune in. The first 20 minutes are critical; after that people will go about their routines at home, watching out of one eye.
Woods got his start as a debater at the now-defunct Donelson High School, regularly getting demolished in state contests, he says, by a Paris, Tenn., girl named Jayne Ann Owens, who later became his sister-in-law and law partner. At Emory University, he reached the finals of national debate championships twice.
That led him into coaching an obscure Georgia state senator named Jimmy Carter as he ran for governor in 1970; six years later, Woods coached Carter in a presidential debate against President Gerald Ford. He's coached figures as disparate as former Illinois Gov. Jim Thompson (a law school professor), Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes and Nashville's Phil Bredesen.
When Gore prepared to debate Dan Quayle in 1992, a tight circle of Gore advisers retreated to a barn near Lebanon. There, using a tape measure and careful angles and lighting, they created a replica of the actual debate setting at Georgia Tech. Off and on, they worked for six days.
Briefing books can run to 500 pages. The goal is to leave no room for surprises for the candidate, then to prepare an all-purpose stock response for the inevitable surprise. Someone role-plays the moderator as well as the opponent.
A similar process preceded Gore's later debate with Ross Perot on the North American Free Trade Agreement, a performance widely seen as a decisive win for the vice president.
Against Bush, Woods says, Gore needs to strike a balance between his command of the facts and personal appeal.
"Very few people are going to be taking notes. When it comes to a choice between the right statistics and the personalized answer, go with the personal every time. The vice president has to concentrate on what he does best, the facts, the figures, the knowledge. That's part of his personality.
"He has a powerful personality, but many times on television he can come across as grim and foreboding. He needs to smile more. People like happy people. And he has to be careful about his cadence, his velocity. Sometimes he speaks too slowly, just the opposite of most people. That's when he gets criticized for talking down to people.
"If he'll speed up his cadence and smile, he'll win any debate with anybody."
And Bush? "He's going to do well. I hope he falls on his face, but he did pretty well in the primary debates. He may be a lightweight, but he will put on a strong performance. Ronald Reagan wasn't strong on getting the facts right, but, like Bush, he was a very engaging personality.
"What people are looking for ultimately is someone they trust to run the government. For the decided voters, a good performance encourages the base of support, while a bad one can discourage the base. That can be very important in the last month."
Larry Daughtrey is a Tennessean columnist.
|
