Debate Called Too Little, Too Late to Help Dole

WASHINGTON —  The people who intend to vote for Bob Dole probably felt better Monday about their choice, but in the wake of Sunday night’s debate, a Times Poll and the assessments of independent analysts indicated that Dole’s performance had been too little and too late to turn the tide of the election.

Blending his fact-laden responses with humor and passion, Dole was “able to some extent to humanize the face of the Republican Party” and counter Democratic charges of extremism, said University of Texas professor Roderick Hart, an authority on political rhetoric.

“But I don’t think there’s any question that he didn’t alter the dynamics of the campaign,” Hart added.

The poll backs up that assessment. Before the debate, in polling conducted Thursday through Sunday, Clinton led Dole, 51% to 40%, among likely voters who said they would watch the debate. After the debate, Clinton’s lead among that group had widened slightly, to 54% to 41%. Ross Perot had support of 7% of the group before the debate, from which he was excluded, and only 4% afterward.

The Times Poll contacted 1,959 registered voters across the nation from Oct. 3-6 before the debate. Among those polled, 1,310 said they would watch the confrontation. Afterward, on Sunday evening and Monday the Times Poll re-interviewed 896 of those who had said they would watch. The margin of sampling error for that group is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Clinton’s lead was about the same among likely voters who said they would watch the debate and among all likely voters interviewed before the debate. In that latter group, he led, 49% to 37%.

Results of the debate left Republican analysts with little to cheer about.

“Dole did pretty well,” said David Keene, a longtime Dole confidant who managed his 1988 presidential campaign. “But the problem is that the clock is running and he has got to do more than make the public receptive. He has to close the deal. And I don’t think the debate moved very far toward doing that.”

Dole made some progress during the debate in softening his image. Asked which candidate they thought would appear more “likable” during the debate, only 9% in the pre-debate polling chose Dole, but 20% chose him afterward.

In addition, the percentage of people viewing him favorably rose from 51% to 61%.

Overall, however, post-debate polling showed almost unalloyed good news for Clinton. His job-approval rating, at a relatively high 55% before the debate, rose even higher, to 62% afterward. Beyond job approval, some 62% of the public after the debate have an overall favorable impression of the incumbent, essentially the same as a month ago.

Those polled picked Clinton over Dole as the man best equipped to handle health care and aid education. By a small margin, Clinton also bested Dole on the questions of which candidate could better balance the budget and conduct foreign policy. Dole won only on the question of which man would better handle illegal immigration.

Dole’s major problem in the debate, said Emory University political scientist Merle Black, is the same difficulty he has consistently faced in the campaign so far--the improvement in the economy since 1992.

“That’s Clinton’s huge advantage,” Black said. “Half or more of Americans think they are better off than in 1992. If you try to argue against what lots of people think from their own experience, it doesn’t go over very well.”

Next to the economy, Clinton’s own disciplined behavior, which matched the high expectations for his performance in the debate, was the biggest obstacle to Dole’s hopes for making significant inroads into Clinton’s double-digit lead.

“A challenger can’t change the race by himself,” said Democratic media consultant Saul Shorr, who advises more than a dozen candidates for congressional and state office this fall. “The incumbent has to make a mistake. But Clinton was steady.”

“He didn’t stoop to conquer,” said Hart, noting that in the face of persistent sniping from Dole, Clinton “never rose to the bait. He just answered the questions that the moderator asked him and disregarded what Dole said.”

Indeed, by a large margin, Clinton was viewed as the “winner” of Sunday’s debate: 42% of those surveyed said he won, 16% said Dole won and 42% called it a draw.

By similar margins, the public felt Clinton got his message across more effectively than his Republican challenger--with 45% saying that Clinton was more effective at communicating his views and only 18% saying Dole was more effective.

“All of the polls are pretty consistent,” said Susan Pinkus, acting director of The Times Poll. “Dole is not making any inroads, his message is not getting across.”

That analysis can be seen in part in a poll question asking which candidate appeared more “presidential.”

Before the debate, those surveyed said by a 50%-17% margin that they expected Clinton would appear more presidential. Afterward, Clinton led on that measure by 52%-21%, with 26% saying the two were equal.

Although the poll indicated that the debate changed few minds, if any, analysts said they felt Dole had held his own with the president for most of the evening, displaying characteristics that many voters had not seen in him--particularly humor.

“He looked relaxed,” said University of Wisconsin presidential scholar Charles Jones. “He did not look intimidated by Clinton. He had more facts and figures in his mind than most people expected. And he had a sense of humor.”

Dole also benefited from low expectations for his performance, which his staff had labored hard to foster in advance of Sunday night’s confrontation.

But with election day now only four weeks away, a tie is not good enough for Dole.

The challenger might have done better if he had taken fuller advantage of the opportunities available to him. Moderator Jim Lehrer gave Dole a chance to raise questions about Clinton’s character--an area that Republican strategists see as Clinton’s most vulnerable point--by asking him whether there were “significant differences in the more personal areas that are relevant to this election.” Dole passed up the chance.

“I don’t like to get into personal matters,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, this is a campaign about issues.”

That disappointed many of his supporters, Keene among them. “I think when Jim Lehrer served him up that character question Dole had a professional obligation to knock it out of the park,” Keene said.

By contrast, Clinton saw an opening to respond to criticism from Dole for not showing sufficient ardor on the war on drugs. He seized the chance to make an emotion-laden reply by referring to his brother Roger’s history as a drug addict.

“That was probably his most important answer of the night,” said Democratic consultant Shorr. “The Dole campaign is spending millions of dollars to claim that Clinton doesn’t care about the drug problem, and he blunted their attack in a powerful way.”

Monday-morning reactions of the two camps were consistent with the outside analysis. Clinton and his advisors oozed confidence throughout the day.

“I would be surprised if he made any inroads at all as far as undecided or the independent voters,” Doug Sosnik, the White House political director, said of Dole.

Sosnik added that in the four weeks before the election, Clinton, who has recently campaigned in GOP bastions from Arizona to New Hampshire, will continue to contest states in which Democrats have not been considered competitive in the past.

Dole’s campaign manager, Scott Reed, meanwhile, said his camp did not expect to see a “monumental shift,” but a “steady building process” in the aftermath of the debate.

Asked which states Dole currently can claim as his, Reed listed only 17 which, together, hold 144 electoral votes--just slightly over half the 270 needed for victory. And he conceded that Florida, considered a reliable GOP state at the outset of the campaign, continues to elude Dole’s grasp.

Times staff writers Elizabeth Shogren in Stamford, Conn., and Paul Richter in Red Bank, N.J., contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Before and After Debate

President Bill Clinton maintains his solid lead over Bob Dole after their first presidential debate. No candidate was perceived as making a blunder in the debate. Clinton was seen as more presidential, more likable, and better able to get his message across to those voters watching or listening to the debate. Although Dole tried to make character an issue, the voters were virtually split on who displayed a stronger personality and character.

* The presidential race (among those likely to vote)

BEFORE DEBATE

Clinton: 51%

Dole: 40%

Perot: 6%

Don’t know/other: 3%

****

AFTER DEBATE

Clinton: 54%

Dole: 41%

Perot: 4%

Don’t know/other: 1%

****

*--*

CLINTON DOLE Before/ After Before/ After Which candidate... Will win/Won? 52% 42% 7% 17% Will seem/Seemed more 29% 33% 21% 18% knowledgeable? Will display/Displayed stronger 50% 38% 23% 35% personality/and character? Will get/Got across his message 53% 46% 9% 18% better? Will respond/Responded better 46% 47% 16% 16% under pressure? Will seem/Seemed more 50% 52% 17% 21% “presidential”? Will/Did give more direct answers? 21% 36% 39% 27% Will/Did appear more likable? 69% 48% 9% 20% Will/Did attack the other more? 7% 3% 54% 61% Will/Did make a blooper? 14% 6% 32% 18%

EVEN Before/ After Which candidate... Will win/Won? 30% 41% Will seem/Seemed more 45% 48% knowledgeable? Will display/Displayed stronger 21% 25% personality/and character? Will get/Got across his message 33% 36% better? Will respond/Responded better 35% 36% under pressure? Will seem/Seemed more 39% 25% “presidential”? Will/Did give more direct answers? 36% 36% Will/Did appear more likable? 30% 32% Will/Did attack the other more? 30% 35% Will/Did make a blooper? 31% 71%

*--*

HOW THE POLL WAS CONDUCTED: The Times Poll contacted 2,298 adults by telephone nationwide, including 1,959 registered voters. The pre-debate poll was conducted October 3 to 6 and the post debate poll was conducted on Sunday evening and Monday. The 821 voters who watched the debate, including 666 likely voters were recruited from the 1,310 registered voters who said they would watch the debate. The margin of sampling error for both groups is plus or minus four percentage points. Telephone numbers were chosen from a list of all exchanges in the nation. Random-digit dialing techniques were used so that listed and non-listed numbers could be contacted. The entire sample was weighted slightly to conform with census figures for sex, race, age, education, region. The registered voters who were contacted after the debate were weighted slightly to conform to the entire panel. The margin of sampling error for the total sample and registered voters is plus or minus 3 percentage points. For certain subgroups the error margin may be somewhat higher. Poll results can also be affected by other factors such as question wording and the order in which questions are presented.

Source: Los Angeles Times Poll