Debate Undercard Could Be a Rousing Bout

There may be no greater contrast in this presidential campaign than the differences between the two men on the bottom half of the ticket.

Vice President Dick Cheney, balding, pudgy, taciturn, has wielded a bludgeon against Sen. John F. Kerry, battering the Democratic presidential hopeful in a barrage of attacks delivered in a low-key, somber, just-the-facts monotone.

Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, well-coiffed, trim, effusive, has taken a scalpel to President Bush, slicing away at the Republican incumbent in a lawyerly, point-by-point assault, all honeyed accent and toothpaste smile.

The prospect of the two sharing a stage for 90 minutes Tuesday night offers the prospect of great political theater, with visions of pointed japes zinging across the auditorium at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University.

But few onlookers expect much of a lasting effect to occur when Cheney and Edwards meet in the only vice presidential debate of the fall contest. Historically, the match-up of number twos has done nothing to change the outcome in November.

“Each of them can help their ticket, but this is a race where the presidential candidates are overwhelmingly driving attitudes,” said Peter D. Hart, a Democratic pollster who has spent decades sampling public opinion. “The vice presidential candidates are the warm-up, the entr’acte, whatever you want to call it” before Bush and Kerry meet in their second debate Friday night in St. Louis.

That is not to suggest, however, the vice presidential session is utterly without consequence, especially in a contest this close.

At the least, the two will dominate a day’s worth of headlines and television broadcasts, possibly giving an edge to one side or the other heading into Friday’s presidential encounter. At worst, a gaffe or some other memorable moment could enshrine Edwards or Cheney in the political pantheon alongside Dan Quayle, who was impaled in 1988 by Lloyd Bentsen’s piercing “you’re no Jack Kennedy” thrust.

Both candidates are treating the debate with the utmost seriousness. Cheney and Edwards have both left the campaign trail for several days of preparation, the vice president at his home in Wyoming and his challenger at a retreat in Chautauqua, N.Y.

Largely, the two will be doing Tuesday night what they have for the last few months: amplifying their running mates’ messages and extending their reach to a wider audience. Only this time, they will do so on a national television broadcast likely to draw tens of millions of viewers.

For the Kerry campaign, the vice presidential encounter represents an opportunity to build on the momentum of last week’s first presidential debate, which most polls and pundits awarded to the Democrat.

“There’s a wonderful opportunity to continue the contrast and to hold Vice President Cheney accountable, because he needs to be held accountable for the wrong choices that this administration has made,” Michael McCurry, a Kerry spokesman, told reporters as Kerry flew Friday from Miami to his first post-debate stop in Tampa. “It will be a clear contrast with someone who is arguably the co-architect of a lot of these failed policies.”

For the Bush campaign, the vice presidential session could present a welcome chance to change the subject from the last debate and set Cheney’s extensive government experience against Edwards’ relatively meager political resume.

“It’ll be a good opportunity to contrast the agenda of the president and Sen. Kerry on foreign and domestic affairs,” said Karl Rove, the president’s chief political advisor. “Because of Cheney’s unique background -- having been a White House chief of staff, a defense secretary, a congressman -- he’s going to be able to tackle both sides of the equation.”

There may be another reason the debate is worth watching, said Charles Cook, an independent election handicapper and editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report: “You are likely to see the Bush and Kerry cases articulated better than they would be by the presidential candidates themselves.”

Edwards, a trial lawyer who honed his rhetorical skills in front of numerous juries, uses his standard campaign speech to make a wide-ranging case against Bush and his policies -- as he attempted Saturday when he delivered the Democratic Party’s weekly radio address.

In 4 1/2 minutes, Edwards assailed Bush’s credibility on Iraq, his economic policies and, in a likely preview of Tuesday night, cited Cheney’s old corporate home, Halliburton, as “a symbol of what’s wrong with this administration.”

“It gives special favors for their friends while you struggle just to get by,” Edwards said, referring to the billions in contracts the support-services company has received from the federal government to help rebuild Iraq. The Bush campaign dismisses the charges of cronyism as groundless.

The radio address was a rare step into the national spotlight for Edwards, who has spent most of his time cultivating support in smaller, more rural areas. Though the result has been a good deal of glowing, local media coverage it has also led some to suggest that Edwards has all but disappeared from the presidential campaign.

“He’s been playing the role that John Kerry hoped he would play, bringing the sunshine and the lightness and the feel-good sense,” said Marie Gottschalk, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “But he’s been, surprisingly, a little invisible.”

By contrast, the unassuming, consciously drab Cheney has seized attention with his scathing attacks and dark warnings about the dangers of a Kerry administration. Unlike Edwards’ multi-pronged message, the vice president has consistently stuck mostly to a single theme, focusing on domestic security matters and their connection to the post-Sept. 11 world.

His nearly 30-minute campaign speech is devoted largely to the war in Iraq and efforts to protect the United States from another terrorist strike. Cheney presents the two matters as seamlessly woven together and repeatedly casts the U.S. invasion of Iraq as an outgrowth of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Cheney is the designated hitter,” said Michael B. Feldman, a senior aide four years ago to Vice President Al Gore. “He’s not a particularly popular figure nationally or among independents, but he’s very helpful and valuable in shoring up the Republican base and generating media attention and inserting something in the debate when the president doesn’t want to insert himself.”

In one instance that continues to rankle, Cheney told an audience in Des Moines that if voters “make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we’ll get hit again.”

Democrats said that comment crossed the line, suggesting the choice for Americans was to reelect Bush or die. Aides to Cheney said he merely meant to convey the idea that whoever was elected would face the challenge of terrorism.

Typically, Cheney’s remarks do not receive the scrutiny of the president’s comments -- notwithstanding the stir created by his Des Moines statement.

“There’s no vice presidential review board. There’s no peer review of vice presidential statements,” said Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University and author of several studies of the vice presidency.

Historically, vice presidents “were allowed to say things the president couldn’t say, and Cheney has contributed to that,” Light said.

Democrats wonder how Cheney plans to approach Tuesday night’s debate -- “as Mr. Nice from the 2000 presidential debate or Mr. Ice of 2004?” as Donna Brazile, Gore’s campaign manager, put it.

Four years ago, Cheney faced Democratic attacks as a right-wing extremist who voted in Congress against sanctioning apartheid-era South Africa and banning cop-killer bullets. But he was so affable and reassuring in a genteel debate with Sen. Joe Lieberman, Gore’s running mate, that Cheney neutralized the assault.

It was the Connecticut senator who later suffered the wrath of Democrats who said Lieberman was too nice in his one chance to go after Cheney.

Barabak reported from Cleveland and Gerstenzang from Washington. Times staff writers Edwin Chen and Matea Gold contributed to this report.