Running Mates on Mark as Debate Baton Is Handed Off

It may be only a sideshow in the 1992 campaign, but to three running mates, today’s vice presidential debate in Atlanta is an assignment they cannot afford to botch.

With one eye on the 1996 presidential race, Vice President Dan Quayle must try to wound the Democratic nominees while avoiding a misstep that would reinforce his image as a bumbler. Democratic Sen. Al Gore, already declared the winner by some pundits, must shine to avoid losing in the expectations game, and perhaps prejudicing his own chances for the White House.

Retired Vice Adm. James B. Stockdale, Ross Perot’s running mate and the debate’s mystery man, must give credibility to his long-shot campaign, though he acknowledges he is not well-versed on many key issues. “He’s not a professional; he hasn’t spent his nights awake hungering for this,” says John H. Bunzel, a Stockdale colleague at the Hoover Institution. “But like the others, he badly wants to do the best he can.”

Analysts on both sides agree that barring a disastrous blunder by one of the participants, the 90-minute matchup is unlikely to change many votes. But the forum, which will be broadcast from Georgia Tech in Atlanta at 4 p.m. PDT, may rapidly take on a harsh personal tone as Gore and Quayle trade charges.

In their traditional role as presidential surrogates, the two men have made strident attacks throughout the campaign. Now, with the election seemingly slipping away from President Bush, the pressure is on Quayle to draw blood--and on Gore to defend himself and his running mate.

Aides say Quayle will hit hard on the Republicans’ contention that Clinton habitually waffles on the issues and cannot tell the whole truth. He will also hit at the Democrats’ supposed secret agenda of “tax and spend,” and argue that a Democratic stewardship would be far more dangerous than the status quo.

Although Clinton will be his first objective, Quayle is likely also to try to point to passages in Gore’s book, “Earth in the Balance,” to paint the Tennessean as an environmental extremist.

“I think you can expect to see the vice president be very aggressive,” said Jeff Nesbit, Quayle’s director of communications.

One subject that won’t be taken up, Nesbit said, is “family values”--a beloved Quayle theme that some analysts say soured many moderate voters after the Republican National Convention.

For his part, Gore is expected to hammer away at Bush’s economic record and to try to deflate Bush’s foreign policy record by charging that the President has not told the truth about the Iran-Contra affair.

Gore’s biggest risk is that he will appear wooden, as he did in his failed 1988 presidential bid, and revive his former nickname of “Al Bore.”

While Quayle and Gore each trade shots at the other man’s running mate, 68-year-old Stockdale is expected to be neither attacker nor attacked.

The retired admiral, a philosophy scholar and decorated former prisoner of war, is likely to be treated with deference by the others, say aides and political professionals. When asked about complex policy questions, he will probably talk only briefly, then turn the subject to the need for deficit cutting and fiscal responsibility, Perot’s favorite themes, said his colleague Bunzel.

As the event approached, the three running mates maneuvered to strike the most advantageous public posture.

Gore, taking a traditional approach to the pre-debate expectations game, has tried to create the impression he faces a fearsome, well-armed opponent. Over and over during the past weekend, he’s been telling anyone who will listen that the debate actually need not even take place because he is so much an underdog to Vice President Dan Quayle.

“I’m out here in this barn in Smith County, my home county,” the Tennessee senator said. “The flies are terrible. The livestock is milling around.

“It’s a distracting thought whenever I remember that Dan Quayle is there in the seat of power, in Washington, D.C., inside the Beltway, surrounded by the entire panoply of the Bush-Quayle Administration, with all of their sophisticated computers, databanks and high-tech PR people. I’m just swatting the flies off and trying to read these briefing books that my folks have put together for me. I’m at a terrible disadvantage.”

But even as he cried the poor-mouth blues, Gore was being prepped by a team of sophisticated political pros who had produced a reasonable replica of the Atlanta debate stage, complete with blue drapes, red carpeting, four television cameras, makeshift lecterns and two computers.

Indeed, Gore is relaxed and ready, optimistic that his three days of practice sessions in rural Tennessee have equipped him to challenge Quayle, say campaign staffers. Even the candidate’s discussion of his underdog status has been delivered with a tongue-in-cheek cockiness that only a front-runner could muster.

Gore spent three days working with aides to prepare for the debate, including one 90-minute dress rehearsal in which Rep. Dennis E. Eckart (D-Ohio) played Quayle and Nashville lawyer Jim Neal played Stockdale.

Quayle and his team, apparently believing it is unnecessary to further dampen expectations, have for several months been playing up their candidate’s abilities and emphasizing his eagerness to take on Gore.

While acknowledging that Gore is a formidable debater, they have insisted that Quayle is a tested politician and a far better candidate than he was in his 1988 debate against Michael S. Dukakis’ running mate, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, which, they insist, Quayle won.

Last week, Quayle told reporters that independent analysts had concluded after his 1988 debate that by all substantive measure he, not Bentsen, had been the victor. But the experience had taught him that “substance doesn’t get you anywhere; it’s style, how you come across on TV,” Quayle said.

On Sunday, Quayle practiced in a 90-minute debate at his Washington office. Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) played Gore’s role, while Karl Jackson, Quayle’s chief foreign policy aide, played Stockdale. On Monday afternoon he drilled again in a session in which aides peppered him with questions, Nesbit said.

Stockdale has spent much of the last week boning up on key policy issues and books reflecting the other candidates’ views. He read Gore’s book on the environment and a collection of Quayle’s comments, and for the first time read Perot’s book, “United We Stand,” in its entirely, Bunzel said.

He said that, although Stockdale is an experienced lecturer, he is not used to framing his thoughts in perfect sound bites. Instead, Stockdale tends to start a thought, then interrupt his sentences again and again as he refines the idea, Bunzel says.

“He’s not a TV personality, but he’s met any challenge that’s been thrown up at him, and he intends to do that again,” Bunzel said.

TODAY’S DEBATE: Sen. Al Gore, James B. Stockdale and Vice President Dan Quayle meet at 4 p.m. PDT.

Today’s Debate

Here are details of the vice presidential debate:

Who: Vice President Dan Quayle, Tennessee Sen. Al Gore, and retired Vice Adm. James B. Stockdale.

When: 4 to 5:30 p.m. PDT

Where: Atlanta

Format: Single moderator

Moderator: Hal Bruno, ABC

Coverage: Live coverage by PBS, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and C-SPAN.

PRESIDENTIAL SCHEDULE

The remaining debates: Thursday: 6 p.m. PDT Monday: 4 p.m. PDT