Carole Simpson of ABC News moderated the debate with questions from the audience. The first question, about how to guarantee fairness in trade, went to Ross Perot. He gave an anti-trade answer. The President gave a pro-trade response. I said I was for free and fair trade and we needed to do three things: make sure our trading partners’ markets were as open as ours; change the tax code to favor modernizing plants at home rather than moving them abroad; and stop giving low-interest loans and jobtraining funds to companies that move to other countries when we didn’t provide the same assistance to needy companies at home.
After trade we went to the deficit, then to negative campaigning. Bush hit me again for demonstrating against the Vietnam War in England. I replied, “I’m not interested in his character. I want to change the character of the presidency. And I’m interested in what we can trust him to do and what you can trust me to do and what you can trust Mr. Perot to do for the next four years.”
After that, we discussed a series of issues—the cities, highways, gun control, term limits, and healthcare costs. Then came the question that turned the debate. A woman asked, “How has the national debt personally affected each of your lives? And if it hasn’t, how can you honestly find a cure for the economic problems of the common people if you have no experience in what’s ailing them?” Perot went first, saying the debt caused him to “disrupt my private life and my business to get involved in this activity.” He said he wanted to lift the debt burden from his children and grandchildren. Bush had a hard time saying how he had been affected personally. The questioner kept pushing him, saying she’d had friends who had been laid off, who couldn’t make their mortgage and car payments. Then, strangely, Bush said he’d been to a black church and read in the bulletin about teen pregnancies. Finally, he said it’s not fair to say you can’t know what a problem is like unless you have it. When my turn came, I said I’d been governor of a small state for twelve years. I knew people by name who had lost their jobs and businesses. I’d met a lot more in the last year all over the country. I had run a state government and seen the human consequences of cuts in federal services. Then I told the questioner that the debt was a big problem, but not the only reason we had no growth: “We’re in the grip of a failed economic theory.” At one point during these exchanges, President Bush made a bad moment worse for himself by nervously looking at his watch. It made him seem even more out of touch. Though we moved on to other matters, like Social Security, pensions, Medicare, America’s responsibilities as a superpower, education, and the possibility of an African-American or a woman being elected President, the debate was essentially over after our answers to the woman’s question about the personal impact of the debt on us. President Bush was effective in his closing statement by asking the audience to think about who they wanted to be President if our country faced a major crisis. Perot spoke well about education, the deficit, and the fact that he’d paid more than a billion dollars in taxes, “and for a guy that started out with everything he owned in the trunk of his car, that ain’t bad.” I began by saying that I had tried to answer the questions “specifically and pointedly.” I highlighted Arkansas’ programs in education and jobs and the support I had from twenty-four retired generals and admirals and several Republican businesspeople. I then said, “You have to decide whether you want change or not.” I urged them to help me replace
“trickle-down” economics with “invest-and-grow” economics.
I loved the second debate. Whatever questions they had about me, real voters most wanted to know about things that affected their lives. A CBS News post-debate poll of 1,145 voters said 53 percent of them thought I had won, compared with 25 percent for Bush and 21 percent for Perot. Five debate coaches interviewed by the Associated Press said that I had won, based on style, specifics, and my obvious comfort level with a format I’d been working with throughout the campaign, and long before that in Arkansas. I liked direct contact with citizens, and I trusted their unfiltered judgment. As we headed into the third debate, a CNN/
percent to 32 percent for Bush to 15 percent for Perot.
Hillary and I went into Ypsilanti with our crew a day early to prepare for the last debate on the campus of the Michigan State University in East Lansing. As they had for the two previous debates, Bob Barnett and Mike Synar put me through my paces. I knew this would be the roughest ride for me. President Bush was a tough, proud man who was finally fighting hard to hold on to his job. And I was sure that, sooner or later, Perot, too, would turn his fire on me.
