On The Firing Line, Mostly Blanks

By WALTER SHAPIRO

As makeup artists worked feverishly backstage at Houston's Wortham Theater Center, seven Democrats gazed into the double mirrors of their slate-gray dressing rooms, and each saw the next President of the U.S. Minutes later, the politicians were seated in leather chairs for the first debate of the too much, too soon 1988 presidential season. So what if their host and chief inquisitor was Conservative Columnist William F. Buckley Jr., who took puckish delight in presenting the Democratic lineup on a special two-hour edition of his TV show, Firing Line? These were seven candidates in search of an audience -- and they were eager to prove they were ready for prime time.

They weren't. Most of the shots on Firing Line were blanks. The Somber Seven were all painfully earnest, briefing-book glib and unfailingly polite. But the few issue differences that emerged (primarily on trade and oil-import fees) were introduced almost apologetically with phrases like "with all due respect." Jesse Jackson and Delaware Senator Joseph Biden, the orators of the group, seemed to believe that flights of rhetoric would be unseemly at such a high-tone forum. Two of the technocratic moderates in the race, Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt and Tennessee Senator Albert Gore Jr., were largely content to enhance their images of quiet competence. That void left Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, Illinois Senator Paul Simon and former Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt in charge of providing charisma, a task akin to asking Comedian Jay Leno to dance Swan Lake.

In truth, the PBS broadcast was less a debate than a video dating service for Democrats. This image was enhanced by a format that included 90-second filmed autobiographies of each contender. There was something almost comic in the intense friendliness of seven candidates introducing themselves like this: "Hello there. I'm Congressman Dick Gephardt from Missouri. The Gephardt family is here in front of our home in Great Falls, Va."

No one had the temerity to claim victory when the debate was over. But in the chaotic pressroom afterward, the Gephardt and Dukakis camps jousted with each other, as if to signify they were now both at the front of the Democratic pack. The two candidates had briefly skirmished over trade in the debate, with Gephardt defending his get-tough amendment ("It's not protectionism, it's promotionism") and Dukakis staking out the internationalist position ("I'm somebody who believes that more trade is better than less trade"). Gephardt, who has been searching for a debating foil since Gary Hart left the race, took a far more aggressive tack with reporters, accusing Dukakis of following a "blame America first" line.

These frenzied efforts at spin control seem ludicrous seven months before the Iowa caucuses. But politics craves winners and losers, regardless of evidence. That explains the headlines generated by a debate focus group of 87 Iowa Democrats conducted by Hickman-Maslin, a Democratic polling firm unaffiliated with any presidential campaign. Their verdict: Dukakis, Gephardt and Simon gained ground, while Babbitt lost long yardage. Of course, such a tiny and far from representative sample is hardly conclusive. But in the game of momentum this Iowa focus group may turn out to have more political weight than its statistical worth.

Any debate, however tepid, will produce a few images likely to stick with viewers. Some highs and lows:

Most overused words. "Guts" (Gephardt), "our children" (Biden), "hard choices" (Dukakis) and "cares" (Simon's favorite verb).

Most adept footwork. Dukakis' response to a smart-alecky Buckley question about how much of Massachusetts' budget goes for defense: "None. But a lot of it goes into social services and education and economic development. And that's why today Massachusetts has the lowest unemployment rate of any industrial state."

Most slavish praise. Babbitt's hosannas to Democratic Patriarch Robert Strauss, who joined Buckley in the questioning. Babbitt twice promised Strauss a Cabinet post in his Administration.

Most original proposal. Simon's suggestion that pictures of steelworkers, coal miners and inner-city children replace the presidential portraits in the White House to remind officials for whom they work.

Most dramatic face-off. Gore, who formally declared his candidacy two days before the debate, displaying the confidence of a veteran in challenging Buckley not once but twice over the validity of a study debunking the Strategic Defense Initiative. In the end it was Buckley who retreated with the words, "I think we're just going to have to move on."

Most preposterous claim. Gephardt, facing a phalanx of news cameras immediately after the debate was over and saying, "We went from the Seven Dwarfs to the Magnificent Seven."

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett/Houston