Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Going to the Candidates' Debate

Monday October 22, 2007

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From Orlando, Florida
GOP Presidential Candidates' Debate

Disclosure Alert: For those who may have been absent during the all-school assembly, I am a paid consultant to the Fred Thompson for President campaign, so you should read what follows through that filter.

The 117th Debate in the current series leading up to the Iowa Caucuses on January 3, 2008 was held last night in Orlando, Florida.

For Fred Thompson, who didn't announce his candidacy until September, it was only the second debate and so a great deal was expected of him.

He delivered.

Without pretending to be the least bit unbiased here's the way I scored it:

Thompson won
McCain was second
Giuliani was third
Romney was a distant fourth

You can read the punditocracy's reviews in your morning paper, but I thought it might be more interesting for you to peek behind the curtain into what goes on during a debate such as this.

First, there is almost a manic attempt to be fair to all parties. That goes for Tom Tancredo as well as Fred Thompson. Every campaign had a staff office which was the same size as everyone else's staff office even though the top tier campaigns had 15 people to work the debate and Duncan Hunter had one.

Each candidate was given a "walk-through" time. Ours was 2:15 yesterday afternoon. As befits a major campaign 23 people absolutely needed to be involved in the walk-through. That is an exaggeration, but I really, absolutely did need to be involved.

The candidate is led down back hallways - lined with dishes, towels, waiters' uniforms, and the general flotsam and jetsam of running a major hotel - to the hall in which the debate will be held.

There the Fox News Channel had a full regiment of technicians, bookers, producers, and on-air personalities on hand to be certain that each candidate knew that this event was being held specifically and solely for his benefit.

In the event, the candidate stood behind his podium. Thompson's had extenders on his microphones because TV demands all the podiums (podia?) are the same height and his 6'5" frame needs some accommodation.

Thompson was then shown how the monitors would indicate how much time was left in each 60 second answer: Green for the first 45 seconds, then yellow to indicate 15 seconds to go, and finally red to signal five seconds to go. After that a bell was sounded to remind the candidate that the red screen in his field of vision meant S. T. O. P.

Thompson returned to his room and four hours later was collected to go to make-up, thence to a waiting area (which was really a screened-off area of the staff room.

At 7:30 he was collected to be joined by the other seven candidates and marched to the hall to hang around for a while before the debate stared at 8:00 pm.

After the debate each candidate was offered time to appear on a special edition of Hannity & Colmes. The order of appearance was worked out with the H & C producers - we were second after Rudy Giuliani.

At the end of the debate, Giuliani went right to the H & C set; we waited until he was done and then followed him.

The set was in the "spin room" where I had been assigned, but there were more spinners than spinees, so I waited until Thompson was finished and we went to our post-debate celebratory rally.

A five minute speech there, another 15 minutes shaking hands and taking photos and, by about 11 pm the event was over and Thompson was delivered unto his hotel room.

During the debate each of the major campaigns has talented people who know everything about everyone and send out a constant stream of kudos for their guy and tsk-tsks for the misstatements of their opponents.

In the end, though, it is not the staffs but the candidates themselves who have to stand there for an hour and a half, answering questions and dodging rhetorical bullets.

Last night was a good one - a very good one - for the Thompson campaign.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to the lyrics of "Mrs. Robinson" by Simon & Garfunkle, a Mullfoto showing why you should not travel to Orlando during peak season and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

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