The Debates Ahead

Not only will Gerald Ford debate Jimmy Carter, but Robert Dole and Walter Mondale are eager to debate each other as well. The Jerry and Jimmy, Bob and Fritz shows should do reasonably well in the ratings against the season's new TV programs; politics is once again becoming a major entertainment form, not to mention a kind of education. While the format has not yet been decided, Carter would prefer cross-examination of the candidates by reporters and an opportunity for each candidate to question the other. The debates will probably be similar to the crucial Nixon-Kennedy encounters in the 1960 presidential campaign, during which the candidates participated in four hour-long debates. Kennedy's performance gave his campaign its biggest boost.

From his home in Plains, Ga., last week, Carter immediately replied to Ford that he was more than willing to debate. Such encounters are not necessarily to Carter's advantage. At candidates' forums during the primaries, he seemed ill at ease, diffident and at times almost surly. Confined to a studio or auditorium and probed by hard-digging newsmen, he often fails to respond with enough decisiveness and precision, and his message blurs. He wins his votes out on the campaign trail, where he can appeal to people in a more personal way, less through what he says than how he says it. In Ford, he will face an experienced debater whose skills were honed in clashes with Democrats during his years as minority leader in Congress.

Carter says he intends to keep his campaign on a high, issue-oriented level. He will emphasize the broad subjects that he concentrated on during the primaries: integrity, competence, the need for change. But he has also planned a series of speeches on specific issues drawn from a group of task forces under Atlanta Attorney Stuart Eizenstat. Carter will attack the "negativism" of the Ford Administration, especially the "human suffering" that he believes was caused by the President's many vetoes.

But Carter is also prepared to slog along the low road if he has to. He will probably disregard personal attacks unless the ticket seems in jeopardy, then he may well punch back. "He knows how to play that game too," warns a senior aide. Carter has already spoken of the "Nixon-Ford Administration" and criticized the President for not taking sufficient "corrective action" to prevent future scandals. When a reporter suggested that such talk seemed to implicate the Ford Administration in unsavory practices, Carter replied: "So be it. It's not my fault that Nixon's unsavory."

For the most part, Mondale will respond to any attack by Dole. Carter has heard, he says, that Dole "is a very aggressive cage rattler." Is he worried that Dole's cage rattling may lead him to make mistakes during the campaign? Says Carter: "I spent four or five years dealing with Lester Maddox, and he's an expert. I think I can deal with that with equanimity."

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