Before last week’s governor debate in Kalispell between Rick Hill and Steve Bullock I was asked, “Are you going to be more Jim Lehrer or Candy Crowley?” Those journalists oversaw the first two presidential debates and what observers thought of their moderating performances was largely influenced by their politics.
Obama supporters largely panned Lehrer, who conducted a more freewheeling debate with a light hand, saying he lost control of the exchange. Snap polls conducted after the debate found that Romney had performed much better than the president. And Republicans praised Lehrer’s role.
“I think it was a very substantive, solid debate,” said Stuart Stevens, a senior advisor to Romney. Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, agreed: “I thought Jim Lehrer did a nice job.”
Democrats, almost universally, didn’t.
“I wondered if we needed a moderator since we had Mitt Romney,” Stephanie Cutter, Obama’s deputy campaign manager, said. Added MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow: Romney “spent much of the night battling not just President Obama, but also the moderator of the debate, Jim Lehrer. And Mr. Romney won every exchange.”
Then it was Candy Crowley’s turn. And her approach was far different. She continually interrupted the candidates and, most notably, corrected Romney when he said the president hadn’t defined the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya as an “act of terror” during a speech the following day. But Romney surrogates said Obama wasn’t referring to Libya and said his administration took two weeks to walk back the suggestion that the attack was sparked by an anti-Islam video. Polls following the debate showed Obama did slightly better than Romney. And the moderator was targeted again.
“Candy was wrong,” former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu said. “And Candy had no business doing that.” Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was less gracious: “She committed an act of journalistic terror.”
Democrats disagreed. “I think Candy Crowley did a great job keeping the debate going but also keeping the discussion going and holding the candidates accountable,” Obama campaign spokesperson Jen Psaki said. “Now Mitt Romney is the only one she fact checked. I don’t know if that happens so often. I think that’s a moment people will remember as well.”
In the days following those debates Jim Lehrer and Candy Crowley became political buzzwords. Of course, a governor debate in Montana hosted at a community college and live streamed on the Internet is on such a lower profile that any controversy over the moderators would be minute in comparison. Still, it was interesting to be asked, as moderator, if I would replicate one or the other.
The governor debate was at times tense. Both candidates were certainly more engaged than during previous encounters. And, in my eyes, the event was even more confrontational than the high-stakes U.S. Senate debate held at the same venue four days prior in which I was also on the panel asking questions. But, overall, my and Beacon senior writer’s Myers Reece performances were forgettable. That’s probably the way it should be. Hill and Bullock answered our questions ably and presented their priorities clearly if elected governor.
I have yet to be accused of being Jim Lehrer or Candy Crowley since the debate, although I really think both of them did a fine job in their roles. The debate formats and rules, chosen by the Commission on Presidential Debates, didn’t help either of them.
But it could have been far worse. In a New York Senate debate last week, the moderator asked Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and her Republican challenger Wendy Long if they had read the erotic novel “Fifty Shades of Grey.”
Neither had.