More than 90 million people watched the last debate on October 19, the largest audience we had drawn. We were questioned half the time by Jim Lehrer, half the time by a panel of journalists. It was President Bush’s best performance. He accused me of being a tax-and-spend liberal, a Jimmy Carter clone, and a waffler who couldn’t make up his mind. On the waffling issue I had a pretty good retort: “I can’t believe he’s accused me of taking two sides of an issue. He said ‘trickle-down economics is voodoo economics’
and now he’s its biggest practitioner.” When he hit the Arkansas economy, I got to reply that Arkansas had always been a poor state, but in the last year we were first in job creation, fourth in the percentage increase in manufacturing jobs, fourth in the percentage increase in personal income, and fourth in the decline in poverty, with the second-lowest state and local tax burden in the country: “The difference between Arkansas and the United States is that we’re going in the right direction and this country’s going in the wrong direction.” I said that, instead of apologizing for signing the deficit-reduction plan with its gas-tax increase, the President should have acknowledged that his error was in saying “Read my lips” in the first place. Perot took us both on, saying he had grown up five blocks from Arkansas and my experience as governor of such a small state was “irrelevant” to presidential decision making, and accusing Bush of telling Saddam Hussein that the United States would not respond if he invaded northern Kuwait. We both whacked him back.
The second half of the debate featured questions by the panel of journalists. On the whole, it was more structured and less feisty, a bit like the first debate. However, there were some made-for-TV moments. Helen Thomas of United Press International, the senior White House correspondent, asked me: “If you had it to do over again, would you put on the nation’s uniform?” I said I might answer the draft questions better, but I still thought Vietnam was a mistake. I then noted that we’d had some pretty good non-veteran Presidents, including FDR, Wilson, and Lincoln, who opposed the Mexican War. When I said Bush had made news in the first debate by saying he would put James Baker in charge of economic policy, but I would make news by putting myself in charge of economic policy, Bush got off a good line:
“That’s what worries me.” The three of us brought the debates to an end with effective closing statements. I thanked the people for watching and caring about the country, and said again that I wasn’t interested in attacking anyone personally. I complimented Ross Perot on his campaign and raising the profile of the deficit. And I said of President Bush, “I honor his service to our country, I appreciate his efforts, and I wish him well. I just believe it’s time to change. . . . I know we can do better.”
It’s hard to say who won the third debate. I did a good job defending Arkansas and my record, and in discussing the issues, but I may have qualified too many of my answers. I had seen enough Presidents who had to change course to want my hands tied later by blanket statements in the debates. With his back against the wall, President Bush did well on everything except his attack on my record in Arkansas; that would work only in an unanswered paid ad, where the voters couldn’t hear the facts. He was better at questioning what kind of President I would be, playing into the perception of Democrats as being weak on foreign policy and tax-happy, and reminding people that the last southern Democratic governor to be elected President presided over a period of high interest rates and inflation. Perot was witty and comfortable in his own skin, which I thought would reassure his supporters and perhaps sway some of the undecided voters. Three of the post-debate polls showed me winning the debate, but the CNN/
Still, on balance, the debates were good for me. More Americans thought I had the ability to be a good President, and the give-and-take on the issues allowed me a chance to push my positive proposals. I wish we could have done them for two more weeks. Instead, we headed for the homestretch, a frenzied rush to as many states as possible, with the airwaves full of negative ads from my opponents, and a shot against Bush from me featuring his most famous statement: “Read my lips.” Frank Greer and Mandy Grunwald did a good job with our ads, and our rapid-response team answered theirs effectively, but it wasn’t the same as having all the candidates in one room. Now they were coming after me, and I had to hang on.
