No Ordinary Round Two
F. Scott Fitzgerald's line that "There are no second acts in American lives" does not apply in this year's presidential debates.
Round Two between Al Gore and George W. Bush might as well be called "Round One, Take Two" when they meet again in Winston-Salem, N.C. on Wednesday night.
"The second debate puts them on an equal footing, because each of them has things to work on from the first debate and in a pretty equal way," said Northeastern University Prof. Alan Schroeder, author of Presidential Debates: Forty Years of High-Risk TV.
Neither the vice president nor the Texas governor was able to overcome his weaknesses in their first encounter in Boston last week. Democrat Gore's chronic sighs and interruptions highlighted the perception that he's arrogant, while his dubious anecdotes about a disaster inspection trip and a schoolgirl without a desk steered him once more into the exaggeration zone.
Republican Bush managed to avoid mangling words unfamiliar to him (i.e. "subliminable"), but he failed to erase doubts about whether he's up to the job of president.
The Gore-Bush rematch will have the same "talk show" format as last week's high tone, relatively venom-free vice presidential debate - a single moderator seated with the candidates at the same table. So with the race for the White House as close as ever, might the top of the ticket follow their understudies' example the second time around?
"Even though the format is similar, the personalities are such that it may take on a whole different feel in this debate," Schroeder told CBSNews.com.
While Bush pushed for the more conversational format, remember that Gore excelled in it against Ross Perot during their NAFTA debate on CNN's Larry King Live in 1993 - as well as against Bill Bradley in this year's Democratic primaries.
"Will they be extremely aggressive or will they feel the need to pull back a little bit?" Schroeder said of Gore and Bush and their coming Carolina clash. "I'm not sure that they'll know until they get into it and each has a chance to check out the other's strategy."
Past campaigns suggest that the second presidential debate can be a curse or a blessing for a candidate.
In 1976, Gerald Ford asserted in round two against Jimmy Carter that "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration." While the GOP president didn't mean to say that, he only compounded his error during a follow-up question. Democrat Carter pounced on the incumbent's faux pas in his reply.
"I would like to see Mr. Ford convince the Polish-Americans and the Czech-Americans and the Hungarian-Americans in this country that those countries don't live under the domination and supervision of the Soviet Union behind the Iron Curtain." Carter said.
Ford's flub, said Schroeder, "is the story that emerged from that debate" nd dogged him on the campaign trail for days afterward - accentuating his image as a bumbler.
Yet in 1984, the second debate was Ronald Reagan's Excalibur. The Great Communicator's poor performance in his first debate with Democrat Walter Mondale renewed questions about whether the nation's oldest president was fit enough for four more years. Republican Reagan deflected that question head-on during the second debate with a quip that brought down the house.
"I will not make age an issue Â… I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience," said Reagan.
"That's the classic example of a second debate being used as a corrective to the first debate," Schroeder said.
And most recently, Bill Clinton's breakthrough moment in 1992 was his second showdown with George Bush the elder and Ross Perot. Pundits and voters alike were wowed by Perot's "breath of fresh air" shtick in the first round. But when Perot had no second act and just repeated himself in round two, Democrat Clinton emerged as "the leader of the pack," said Schroeder.
Given the elder Bush's lackluster performance in all three of the '92 encounters, Schroeder added that "the second debate Â… definitely is the one that put Clinton on the map."