Ann Richards has some advice for Kerry re debates

Ann Richards: Bush debate style simple
By David Callender
September 25, 2004

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry will likely have one major obstacle to overcome as he prepares for his debate with President Bush next week, warns former Texas Gov. Ann Richards.

Kerry, like Richards and other Democrats who have faced Bush in past debates, probably knows too much.

"As a consequence, we see issues in less simplistic terms than the president. The president speaks in terms that are so simple on the most complex issues that it sort of leaves you with your mouth hanging open," says Richards, who was unseated by Bush 10 years ago this fall.

In an interview Friday, Richards, who was in Madison to build support for Kerry among women voters, says Bush is untroubled by both facts and the complexities of most political issues.

With her typically tart wit, Richards argued that Bush's campaign has deliberately sought to avoid answering tough questions about everything from the war in Iraq to the looming federal budget deficit, choosing to respond in inconsequential sound bites instead.

She contends that has been part of Bush's political strategy for years, citing an exchange during the presidential debates four years ago when he and Vice President Al Gore fielded a question about Medicare and health care costs.

Richards recalled that Bush responded, "I think Medicare needs to be reformed."

"That doesn't tell you anything about what he's going to do, it's simply a simplistic answer," Richards added. "And he does that on almost everything. You give people a simple answer and then you don't have to answer the complicated questions that matter."

Yet Richards admitted she has a grudging respect for Bush's campaign organization. "It is one of the slickest political machines that I've seen in my lifetime, and I've been in politics for over 50 years," she said. "I think it is without question the most difficult (to counter) when it comes to the misrepresentation of facts."

A prime example, she said, is the war in Iraq.

"Here we are in a war where we have committed $200 billion, shortchanged education, shortchanged health care, shortchanged job training, and the reason we were told we had to go to war was because (Iraq was) a threat to the safety and security of America.

"But now it turns out, with the simplistic responses that George Bush gives, that we were there to get rid of a bad man, Saddam Hussein. There's no discussion about what he's going to do about all of the other bad men in the world.

"But if he can answer the questions with those simple little terms, he has avoided answering the tough questions, like how many more men and women will it take? How much more money? What is the Pentagon telling you? And why don't you believe the CIA reports you're getting now that this thing doesn't look solvable?"

If Bush is a master at oversimplifying issues, she acknowledges, Kerry can make the simplest subjects seem complicated. That's because Kerry "sees all the different sides to them," she said, a quality the Bush campaign has used to paint him as a "flip-flopper."

Richards has been one of Bush's sharpest critics. She gained national attention in 1992 when she mocked his father, President George H.W. Bush, as "Poor George," who was "born with a silver foot in his mouth."

But has the younger Bush changed over the years since Richards faced him?

"Sure," she replied. "He's walking with his arms a little wider, as if he's gonna go for his sidearms. I don't know whether his tailor is making his suits too tight under the arms or whether he's adopted a kind of Gary Cooper-John Wayne walk down the hall to the podium. He's far more confident than he was. And he is more certain of his rightness, regardless of the facts."

Richards said she wouldn't presume to give Kerry specific advice in preparing for his debate with Bush this week. Kerry will arrive in Spring Green on Sunday to begin three days of intensive work with advisers before facing Bush on Thursday.

"But I would tell him, number one, to be himself, because television is a very intimate medium. People decide by a lot of subliminal messages whether they believe you and trust you or not. Second, I would tell him to be direct. And I think George Bush can be confronted, but he hasn't been yet."

The problem, she contended, is that there are just too many targets for Kerry to hit all of them.

"In every sector I can name, from the conduct of this war to the environment to education to health care to jobs, (Bush's) performance has been so hurtful to people that it's staggering," she said.

On the issues that matter to women, Richards said, "this president has been the worst in our history. He's been the most disappointing to women, who thought with all of his commitments and promises that things were going to change for them. Things didn't change; they got worse."

Richards said she believes Democrats can win the old-fashioned way, by just turning out more voters than Republicans. But she acknowledges the possibility that the political machine that Bush has created may carry the day.

"If we in this country have become the kind of people that we don't want to know anything more than some simplistic answer or non-answer to questions, then God help us," she said. "If we want to elect people to public office whose whole purpose and goal is to avoid controversy and avoid answering the tough questions about government, then we're in terrible shape."