Presidential Debates

WASHINGTON -- The Bush campaign says that the president was not willing to debate Gov. Bill Clinton this fall under a proposal put forth by the Commission on Presidential Debates.Campaign officials did not flatly rule out debates. But they said yesterday the commission's proposal for three debates, with a single moderator running each, was unacceptable."I would expect that there would be debates but we will not accept the commission's proposal as it is outlined now," Robert M. Teeter, the Bush campaign chairman, said while talking with reporters.

WASHINGTON -- In this presidential election season, as in every one since 1976, a sort of tribal dance is being performed by the two major-party candidates over the question of debates.How many should there be, when and under what format? And as in previous election years, threats of having none are tossed back and forth. But in the end differences have been worked out, and this year is expected to be no exception.The rejection by the Bush-Quayle campaign of dates and a format proposed by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, and the Clinton-Gore team's subsequent re-jection of a Bush-Quayle deadline tonegotiate changes, are part of strategic jockeying on both sides.

AMERICAN VOTERS must be grateful to MTV, Oprah Winfrey and Larry King for providing forums in which the presidential candidates introduced themselves. We now know George W. Bush's favorite sandwich (peanut butter and jelly). We know Al Gore worries about his stiff image: Accused of claiming he created the Internet, he used the accusation to unveil a sense of humor. "Did you know I invented the environment?" he asked last week at the University of Michigan. Fine. But we need more. Much more.

Washington. -- Ever since John F. Kennedy confronted a five-o'clock-shadowed Richard Nixon in a 1960 debate, we Americans have come to expect our presidential candidates to lock horns on radio and television.So we're uneasy that President Bush and his advisers have rejected the formula of three direct confrontations with Democrat Bill Clinton in a format with just one moderator. Don't worry -- there surely will be debates. But we must understand what the haggling is all about.President Bush does not want a frontal one-on-one debate with Clinton.

Round 2 of the presidential debates was a split decision, but the winner was again the slightly hoarse governor from Arkansas, Bill Clinton, according to a panel of eight Baltimore area voters who have viewed the first two presidential debates together at the invitation of the Baltimore Sun.The panel had judged Mr. Clinton the shutout winner of the first debate -- 6-0, with two voting for a tie -- mostly on the basis of strength on the issues. Last night five members voted him the winner again -- including all three undecided voters on the panel -- while two said President Bush won it and one declared independent candidate Ross Perot the winner.

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- With the completion of the debate phase of the presidential campaign here on the Michigan State campus, one political chessboard can be put away for another four years. Once again, the candidates and not any third party such as the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates made the critical moves that determined when and how the debates would be conducted, and how many.Unless legislation is passed by 1996 requiring presidential debates, and that's not likely, the same maneuvering will take place again in four years, assuming that each of the major-party nominees chooses to debate at all. But with the precedent of debates in the last five presidential elections, it will be hard for either candidate to say no without risking the wrath, or at least the ridicule, of the electorate.

IF YOU LIKED the empty spectacle of the Republican and Democratic conventions -- not to mention "Dick Morris Presents the Politics of Values" -- you'll love the pingpong of the presidential debates.That's what you can expect if the debates are between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. Many political and media establishment types prefer it that way because no one else seems to have much of a chance to win. By this standard, of course, the inept Dole could be excluded as well, leaving us with no need for debates at all. Not that the president couldn't fill the air time.

WASHINGTON -- As the first presidential debate of 2000 approaches, the focus is on Republican nominee George W. Bush, because it can either be an escape route for him out of his current campaign struggles or it can mire him more deeply in them. The Bush campaign is playing the low-expectations game, identifying Democratic nominee Al Gore as the better and more experienced debater. Indeed, the conventional wisdom holds that the sometimes-flippant Texas governor could do himself in with a conspicuous gaffe, or simply by coming off as less than "presidential."

Ethical cloud mars Taylor's nominee to ethics task force Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates Casper R. Taylor has asked the fox to guard the hen house. How else could he demean the voters by appointing John Stierhoff to the General Assembly Task Force on Ethics? ("Evans partner named to panel on ethics issues," July 27). It is hard to believe that Mr. Taylor would appoint someone who remained in the office of lobbyist Gerard Evans while unethical practices were carried on -- and who obviously felt that he had something to hide.

RICHMOND, Va. -- Having tried three different formats in the two presidential and one vice presidential debates, the Bush and Clinton campaigns have agreed to a mix for the third and final presidential confrontation in East Lansing, Mich., tonight. Half of the 90 minutes will have a press panel asking questions and half will go with a single moderator.This compromise between George Bush, who prefers the first format, and Bill Clinton and the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, who pitched for the second, rules out the third approach -- the direct questioning of the candidates by randomly selected voters as seen in Thursday night's presidential debate here.