A Teachable Moment
Veteran strategists offer advice to Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.
Vice presidential debates, like vice presidents, used to be low voltage. Now they are prime time, big time. Why? Two words: Dick Cheney. In 2000 and 2004, his debate performances (he played the calm, well-informed dinner guest) helped elect and re-elect Bush. In the White House, the vice's clout has been both unrivaled and reviled. Now comes Sarah Palin, Wonder Woman of Wasilla. This Thursday a huge audience is expected to watch her only major public test, a 90-minute bout with Joe Biden, a loquacious 35-year veteran of the Senate. How should Palin and Biden handle the momentous moment? I asked two world-class corner men: Democrat Bob Shrum, who prepped John Kerry in 2004, and Republican Stuart Stevens, who advised Cheney. All told, the two strategists have worked on 15 presidential or vice presidential debates. Excerpts:
Shrum on Biden: "You don't ever assume your guy knows enough, but in Joe's case, the problem is that he knows so much. You want to work carefully on honing his answers in practice sessions. It's four steps: an assertion, two supporting points and then the finish. Biden also should have a good feel in advance for Palin's answers. She's so new to all this that they have given her a set of lines: 'Surge is working,' 'John McCain is a maverick.' You practice the comebacks.
"Biden needs to be ready for two Sarah Palins: the smiling one and the attacking one. Actually, she is pretty good at doing both at the same time. Joe should not go after her at all, but only after McCain. And while he is doing it, Joe cannot adopt a posture of being aggressive toward her or, worse, condescending. He attacks McCain only on the economy—the GOP ticket's weakest spot. As he does so, Biden talks about his blue-collar background.
"She is going to attack Obama, and he has to defend him. Joe has to be the voice of authority: 'I know what it will take to be a good commander in chief, and I have seen with my own eyes that Barack can handle the job.' Joe has to be a character witness."
Stevens on Palin: "She should be very aggressive, but primarily toward Obama. She should try to drive a wedge into the Democratic ticket by playing back Biden's own critical, dismissive words about Obama from the primary season.
"She would not be well served going after snarky debating points. Voters know she can tweak Obama with her gleeful combativeness. That kind of thing plays better to Republican audiences than to a national one. She shouldn't be delivering lines to the faithful.
"In a vice presidential debate, you define the job and then try to convince people that you fit the definition. Cheney did that his own way—a heavy-lifting job for a serious guy—but the Palin model is different. She should define the job as a constant economic reality check. The card she has underplayed so far is the personal, economic-realism one. She can say, 'I understand your family's stress because I have lived it with a husband who works hard and five kids of our own. We know what life is like when you are at the mercy of economic forces you cannot control. That is what happened to us in our commercial fishing business. Cost of fuel went up, the price of the catch went down.' If you're Palin, what you have to do in a debate is write in your head what you want the wire-service newspaper lead to be. Her goal should be to not make news. And that means when Biden attacks, or the moderator's questions are detailed, she should not respond at length. Instead, she should focus on her personality. She should want that lead to be: Palin came across as a likable, caring person who believes what she says."
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Howard Fineman is Newsweek's Senior Washington Correspondent and Columnist, senior editor and deputy Washington bureau chief. He is the author of "Living Politics," a column that began on MSNBC.COM and Newsweek.com and that now also appears in the print magazine. An award-winning reporter and writer, Fineman also is an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, appearing regularly on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and "TODAY." The author of scores of Newsweek cover stories, Fineman's work has appeared as well in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic. His 2008 national best-selling book, "The Thirteen American Arguments," was released in paperback by Random House in the spring of 2009.
One of the nation's leading political reporters, Fineman has interviewed every major presidential candidate from (then-vice president) George H.W. Bush in 1985 to (then senator) Barack Obama early and often in the 2008 campaign cycle. His current work focuses on the Obama Administration and its top officials, as well as on Congress and politics throughout the country. Although based in Washington, Fineman travels widely in the U.S. and has covered politics and other events in 49 of the 50 states.
Fineman's work has produced many milestones and awards. A cover story in November 2001 featured President George W. Bush's first extensive interview after 9/11. Another cover, "Bush and God," was part of a series of articles that won the 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. His reporting has helped Newsweek win many honors from the Magazine Publishers Association and the American Journalism Review. Other awards include a "Page One" from the Headliners Club of New York, a "Silver Gavel" from the American Bar Association and a "Deadline Club" from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). In 2006 he received the Alumni Award from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
As a reporter and writer, Fineman ranges widely. Besides campaign-year covers, other projects have included: race and politics, the impact of digital technology on society, the influence of Hollywood on politics, the rise of the religious right and of conservative talk radio. He has interviewed business leaders such as George Soros, Bill Gates, Steve Case and Robert Rubin and entertainment figures such as Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda and Jay Leno.
Although now under exclusive television contract to NBC, Fineman over the years has appeared on major public affairs shows, such as Nightline, Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, Larry King Live, Charlie Rose and the NewsHour. He was a regular panelist on Washington Week in Review on PBS (1983-95) and on CNN's Capital Gang Sunday (1995-98). He worked with Ted Koppel on Nightline specials, and has been a guest on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report."
A native of Pittsburgh, Fineman began his career at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, covering the environment, the coal industry and state politics before joining the newspaper's Washington bureau in 1978. He moved to Newsweek in 1980, was named chief political correspondent in 1984, deputy Washington bureau chief in 1993, senior editor in 1995 and senior Washington correspondent and columnist in 2008.
Fineman holds an A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Colgate, an M.S. in journalism from Columbia and a J.D. from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. His legal education included a year as a visiting student at the Georgetown University Law Center. He received Watson and Pultizer Traveling Fellowships for study in Europe, Russia and the Middle East, and has traveled to more than 40 countries, among them China, Vietnam, Japan, Ukraine, Israel, Turkey and the West Bank Palestinian Territories.
Fineman is married to Amy L. Nathan, a senior counsel at the Federal Communications Commission. They live in Washington with their two children, Meredith and Nicholas.
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