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Debate Club What's it like to be one man juggling a roomful of really desperate candidates?
by Anderson Cooper
Details February 2004
Presidential candidates don't sweat. I know, Nixon did in his debate with Kennedy, but that was 1960. Since then NASA or some top-secret lab must have developed a special antiperspirant, because when today's politicians take off their jackets, even if they're under hot lights and trailing badly in the polls, their shirts seem remarkably stain-free.
I'd never noticed this until I moderated a debate of Democratic presidential candidates on CNN and my own personal floodgates opened wider than Albert Brooks' in Broadcast News. When you're drenched in sweat, you tend to be painfully aware of how dry everyone else is.
Moderating a debate is like conducting an orchestra. No one pays much attention to what you are doing unless things go badly, and then it's your fault. To prepare, you have to bone up on every candidate's stance on every issue. With nine Democratic candidates, that's a lot of boning. Reforming international fishing regulations? Sure, it's unlikely the topic will come up, but just in case, you'd better know what all of them have said about it. The whole process is a little like cramming for a final. Every night for several weeks, I'd lie in bed reading position papers and transcripts of all the debates the candidates had already taken part in. That month, I didn't need any Ambien. If you've seen any of the debates, you know the problem. There are simply too many candidates to make a debate interesting or effective. And most debates are as highly orchestrated as campaigns: Where the candidates stand or sit, how many questions are asked, how long the response time is-these are all matters addressed with heavy input and feedback from the campaigns. You may not know this, but there's a debate drinking game on some college campuses right now-especially those overstocked with policy wonks. Students gather, and every time a candidate repeats a phrase from the standard stump speech, everybody downs a shot. It happens rather a lot. Here's a quick test. See if you can match the oft-repeated phrase with the candidate. *
a. "We need to get the U.N. in and the U.S. out." This debate was to be different. Technically it wasn't even a debate; it was a forum, where the candidates would address issues of interest to young Americans. The audience of 18-to-30-year-olds would ask the questions, and I would follow up. It took place in Boston's historic Faneuil Hall, which was packed with about 500 carefully screened Democrats and independents. If you don't screen the crowd, you end up with a roomful of one candidate's campaign staff or a cabal of Lyndon LaRouche supporters-and they have a seemingly limitless heckling budget. After many meetings and strategy sessions, we'd decided to have the candidates seated on stools. Yes, these sorts of things are the topics of endless meetings. I would be standing and could move around, but not too much. The candidates don't like it if the moderator is mobile and they are stuck in one place. I guess it makes them feel like Dick Cheney holed up in his secure location. Anyway, a couple days before the debate, I'd had lunch with Joe Klein, a seasoned political journalist and author of Primary Colors, among many other books. Klein was giving me some advice when all of a sudden Bill Clinton appeared at the table. I'd never met him before. No matter what your opinion of Bill Clinton's presidency, in person he is physically impressive, intimidating even. After lunch, I said to Klein, "If all the candidates are like him, it's going to be difficult to moderate this debate." Klein smiled. "Don't worry about it," he said. "None of them got what he's got." When the candidates finally arrived at Faneuil Hall, I was relieved. Some of the nine Democrats are without a doubt physically imposing, but at least one is positively elfin. I'm not going to name names, but there are some candidates you can imagine going toe-to-toe with Vladimir Putin; there are others you can barely imagine going toe-to-toe with Yakov Smirnoff. To loosen the candidates up and put them on notice that we didn't want to hear the same old sound bites, we'd prepared a video montage of each of them uttering their catchphrases over and over at other debates. I was afraid they'd get up and walk out, or at the very least stare at me icily. To their credit, they didn't. Some even seemed to enjoy the video and laughed at themselves, which is no small feat for a politician. When I saw them laughing, I knew the night was going to be fun. What no one had really warned me about, however, was that throughout the debate, while one candidate was talking, another would be trying to get my attention to let me know he wanted to speak next. Some were obvious about it, motioning with their hands; others simply stared at me until we made eye contact. The problem is, you can't let everyone speak when they want to, so I found myself avoiding eye contact with people who might one day be president. I hope they won't hold it against me. Off set, in a trailer outside the hall, there were a couple of CNN producers keeping close watch on how much time each candidate was given and how many questions were asked of each. It doesn't matter if a candidate doesn't have a Carol Moseley Braun's chance in hell of getting the nomination, everyone has to get equal time. During commercial breaks, some of the candidates would come over and let me know they wanted to speak on a particular issue. One complained that while he obeyed the time-limit rule, the other candidates didn't stop talking when the time buzzer sounded. What can you say to that? "Thanks for following the rules"? At the second commercial break I decided I should just leave the stage so nobody could find me. The candidates attacked Governor Howard Dean for a statement he'd made earlier referencing the Confederate flag. Clearly, some of them smelled blood and went in for a quick kill. The exchange was dramatic, and I let it go on for several minutes. It was, as they say, great TV, and was replayed repeatedly on all the networks the following day. It is a cliché that politics is theater, but, of course, some clichés are true. Watching the debate up close, being part of it, you see the candidates' makeup, you see them adopting costumes so they look like regular folks, you see them use gestures no human being really ever uses. My favorite is the clenched fist with the thumb extended straight out. Politicians use it when most people would just point. I assume some strategist has decided that pointing appears pedantic, so the fist/thumb jab is now Democratic de rigueur. By the time the show was over, the Reverend Al Sharpton had said he wanted to party with Senator John Kerry's wife, Senator Joseph Lieberman had apologized to the crowd for admitting he'd never smoked pot, and Congressman Dennis Kucinich had unveiled a rap video. It was not your parents' debate. Afterward, things moved quickly. Most of the candidates disappeared into the "spin room" before I could even shake their hands. I like the fact it's called the spin room-at least it's an honest description of what goes on there. When I walked in, a reporter from some overseas radio station put a microphone in my face and asked me a lengthy question about Israeli security. I realized he thought I was General Wesley Clark. I almost didn't have the heart to tell him he had the wrong gray-haired guy. A Kucinich operative buttonholed me, saying the congressman hadn't been given enough time, and Kucinich himself got into an argument with Joe Klein about why Klein wouldn't write about him. Klein explained to him that it was because he simply didn't take the congressman seriously. Come to think of it, after that, the candidate might have started sweating just a little.
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