The Hindu Business Line : US presidential debates — High point of American democracy

One may not agree with the US policies and worldview, but there is no gainsaying the commitment of the nation and its people to upholding the spirit and temper of democracy. The best example of this is the Presidential debates, a tradition of American politics, that the electorate uses as a touchstone to appraise the candidates. Therein lies a lesson for the world's most populous democracy and, more important, its leaders, says B. S. Raghavan.

I ARDENTLY hope the leading lights of India's political parties had the curiosity and the motivation to watch all the three scintillating debates held in the US between the incumbent President, Mr George W. Bush, and the White House aspirant and the three-term Massachusetts Senator, Mr John Kerry, if for nothing else, at least to benchmark the behaviour and conduct of their kind against what prevails in a true and genuine democracy. One may have one's own views on the official policies and worldview of the US Government, but there is no gainsaying the commitment of the nation and its people to upholding the spirit and temper of democracy and the principles and values incorporated in their Constitution both in letter and spirit.

The most contentious and divisive issues in which political parties and leaders have high stakes are resolved, not by taking recourse to gory violence on the streets and murders of political opponents as in the case of Gandhiji's India, but through debates within the portals of elected bodies beginning from county councils to the high-domed Capitols in the States and the seat of the federal government in Washington D.C. The impeachment of a President on unsavoury accusations of sexual misconduct and the obstruction of justice, clubbed as "high crimes and misdemeanours," was gone through with great dignity and decorum within a matter of six months, and once the Senate acquitted Mr Bill Clinton after observance of due process, the matter was closed with no further display of mean-mindedness and vendetta against him or his party faithful.

Contrast between India and the US

What greater prize can there be for a politician or a political party than winning the election for the topmost position like the presidency, and that too wielding the unparalleled influence, power and authority of the world's mightiest, wealthiest and technologically most advanced country like the US? And yet, when the counting of ballots in the 2000 presidential election, in just one State, Florida, presided over by the brother of Mr Bush himself, was botched up, and the Republican contender, Mr George Bush, was declared the winner by the Supreme Court by just one vote, the Democratic rival and Vice-President, Mr Al Gore, and all his party persons and supporters instantly and with grace accepted the verdict, dismissing the snide comments in the US media about the Republican antecedents of some of the Justices and without making an issue of the court decision going counter to the popular (as distinguished from the electoral) vote giving a majority to Mr Gore.

Transpose these two events — Mr Clinton's impeachment and the declaration of Mr Bush's election — to India, tom-tomed as the world's largest democracy and the oldest civilisation with a many-splendoured cultural heritage suffused with the highest values, traditions, principles and tenets that humankind can think of. There will be no doubt even in a new-born child's mind as to what would have happened. The whole country would have been up in flames for days and weeks, with countless lives lost and property worth crores of rupees destroyed.

Coming to the three recent debates between the two presidential debates, have India's high and mighty, throwing their weight about as lords and masters, with gun-toting black cats surrounding them and cavalcades of limousines following them, noticed how the contestants as well as the audiences, submitted themselves good-humouredly to the discipline imposed by the moderator and meticulously adhered to the ground rules and time limits? In all the four-and-a-half hours of forceful verbal bouts and jousts with the highest office in the land at stake, not once did either of the candidates exceed the time limit, nor did they say or do anything forbidden by the Commission for Presidential Debates. The audiences too, comprising as they did average citizens and voters, were models of self-restraint and sobriety. Those who asked questions in the second debate conducted in the style of a town hall meeting were brief and to the point and observed all the niceties and decencies as demanded by the occasion.

India's political potentates were no doubt horrified by the pleasant and amiable way both Mr Bush and Mr Kerry greeted and shook hands at the beginning and the conclusion of each debate, and their unfailing courtesy of thanking each other for their time and participation. Mr Kerry, in the third debate, even generously and feelingly acknowledged the inspiring leadership of Mr Bush immediately after the catastrophic terrorist attacks on 9/11.

In general, while Mr Bush was subdued and defensive (his harshest jabs being directed at his opponent's "flip-flop" over support for Iraq war and his being a "far left liberal" prone to tax and spend), Mr Kerry, by contrast, was in an attacking mode in all the three debates, wagging his finger at "this President" in a personally accusatory manner for many sins of omission and commission. He laid on him the entire blame for the mess in Iraq, the "colossal error of judgment" in going to war and the failure to win the peace, "outsourcing" the job of capturing Osama bin Laden to the Afghan warlords who let him slip away, frittering away more than five trillion dollar surplus in giveaways to the top one per cent of the richest part of the society and to vested interests of various kinds, depriving the children, the ailing, the old and the infirm of health care, being the "first President in 72 years" to cause 1.6 million job loss, and all in all, indulging in the use of "weapons of mass deception" unbecoming of one in his high position.

Transpose this situation too to India, for a minute. First, political opponents would never appear on the same platform; certainly a ruling politician would consider it beneath his dignity to stand on an equal footing along side a candidate in the opposite camp, particularly one who is out of power and, therefore, inferior as a human being! Assuming, though, that a Bush-Kerry kind of exchange is possible in the Indian milieu, can you imagine the fate of the participants trading the same kind of barbs as the two did on a public platform across the political divide? There will be a bloodbath with toadies of both contestants mercilessly beating up each other and even going on a murderous spree.

Established tradition

Presidential debates in the US have become an established tradition of American politics from the 1960s when the first ever confrontation took place between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon before the TV camera. The American electorate uses them as a touchstone for appraising the leadership qualities, credibility and the deportment of the candidates. The medium of TV, being pitiless even in exposing the pores of the skin, is able to capture the essence of the candidates' personality and what has been defined as presidential timbre in vivid and graphic detail and provide a yardstick with which to measure the respective capabilities.

The visual impact is so dramatic that it can reverse the fortunes of the candidates sometimes on trivial considerations. For instance, viewers got prejudiced against Richard Nixon not on account of his stand on issues in his debate with John Kennedy but because of his "evening shadow", and plumped for Ronald Reagan as he was able to turn the tables on Jimmy Carter by his derisive comment ("There you go again") whenever the latter repeated himself.

The Bush-Kerry debate too promises to lift the fortunes of Mr Kerry from the status of an under-dog to that of a possible winner. There is no doubt that the cool, calm, collected and confident bearing with which Mr Kerry comported himself, and demonstrated his mastery over facts and marshalled his arguments has enhanced his standing among the millions who watched the debates and this could result in a dramatic swing of the undecided voters in his favour taking him past the winning post.

Of course, there are still two weeks for the polling day, and as Harold Wilson quipped, a week itself is a long time in politics. Many things may happen between now and November 2 to turn the tide one way or the other. All we can do at the moment is to expect the unexpected and mutter: May the better of the two win!