POLITICS WATCH : A Matter of Time

When the nation tunes in Sunday to the first in a series of televised presidential and vice presidential debates, one huge group of Americans will enjoy a decided advantage over the rest of us.

Due to the three-hour time difference between the East and West coasts, Easterners will have plenty of time to walk the dog, eat dinner and collect their thoughts before sitting down at 8:30 p.m. EDT to watch the 90-minute debate among President Bush, Gov. Bill Clinton and Ross Perot.

Then, come Tuesday, as those in the Eastern time zone see the opening of the vice presidential debate, which starts at 8:30 p.m. EDT--5:30 Pacific Daylight Time--many of the 38 million people who live on the West Coast will be tied up on freeways or in some cases will still be at work.

Sure, commuters can listen on their car radios. But remember, those who listened to the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debate on the radio thought that Richard M. Nixon had won.

Obviously, in a nation with six time zones from the East Coast to Hawaii, somebody has to lose out. We on the West Coast have even gotten used to watching live programming that is “tape-delayed.” That, we can take. But presidential debates are another matter. Couldn’t the West have gotten at least one of those three weekday debates closer to its prime time? Say about 8 p.m. PDT?

The popular press in recent months has been full of stories about how Americans work ever-longer hours. That goes for those of us out here on the frontier, too. Just a friendly reminder from the nation’s most populous state.