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Edward M. Fouhy

Edward M. Fouhy was the executive producer of the presidential and vice presidential debates of 1988 and 1992. He is the founding director of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism and the executive director of the Pew Center on the States. Fouhy held key posts at ABC News (vice president and Washington bureau chief), NBC News (executive producer for prime-time magazine programs), and CBS News (vice president). He has received five national Emmy awards for his work in television.

John W. Mashek interviewed Fouhy on April 11, 2007.

This year they are talking about three presidential debates and once vice presidential [debate]. That is, before the “debate on the debates” starts, and whether the candidates live up to it. Do you think that in this campaign cycle, given that there is, other than [Hillary] Clinton maybe, nobody anywhere near being a certain candidate, that we may see three presidential [debates] and one vice presidential debate?

Yes, I think so. The reason is because that has become the norm, that’s become the standard. That’s become, because of a lot of effort by a lot of people, what the American people demand and want. They want an opportunity to see these candidates under pressure and face-to-face. It’s the one time, during the campaign, when everybody tunes in.

It could be crucial, this time.

Hard to say it could be crucial. It’s always important. I don’t know if that’s the same as crucial. I have found, over many years watching American politics, that people who make predictions about what’s going to happen in national politics almost always look like fools.

Do you remember President [Edmund] Muskie?

We are also seeing a new phenomenon, not surprising, that on February 5 up to 20 states will be holding primaries, and virtually the election, the campaigns, the nominees will be decided that day. What about debates leading up to that in Iowa, and New Hampshire, and so on? Are candidates going to be wary of that, being that it costs money to stop the campaign for a day or two? Or is it apt to just flow right into the . . .

Yes, I think it will flow right in. Candidates don’t like debates because it doesn’t serve their purpose. But the public demands debates. And I think we are beyond the period of time when they could turn them down. You recall that back in 1980 and ’84, it was very difficult to get the candidates to debate. And there were many, many problems that occurred. That’s why the Commission on Presidential Debates was recommended by the reform commission and came into being after that rather arid campaign in ’84. And I think it’s remarkable how that particular aspect of presidential campaigns has improved, while almost every other aspect has deteriorated.

I am going to ask a few questions about the debates. In the interest of full disclosure, I actually was a panelist in both ’88 and ’92. 

The feeling spread by Ralph Nader and Chris Matthews and the like was that one of two things: that the sponsors who contributed to holding the debates, or the two parties, were controlling the debates. Any truth to that?

No, of course not. Ralph Nader and Chris Matthews are good people. I only disagree that they think the perfect is the enemy of the good. This is a good way of doing debates. We tried it before with other people sponsoring, and it didn’t work. The reform commission that made the recommendations following that terrible campaign in ’84 recommended that the parties take control. And I think the parties have done a good job, primarily because of Frank Fahrenkopf and Paul Kirk, who were the party chairmen at the time that came together and did a good job. But the nonsense that they control this is libel. It’s libel on you; it’s libel on me. We spent our entire careers building reputations for integrity. And I know that you would not have risked your reputation for integrity. And I know I wouldn’t, if I thought that there was anything that was fixed about those debates.

Just to ask this question and to go further on that point, did either Fahrenkopf or Kirk or any of the corporate sponsors ever come to you and say, “We want such-and-such a question asked”?

No.

Or, “We want such-and-such a panelist.”

No. That would not have been their instinct in the first place. If they had, they know that neither I would have done that nor the panelists would have that. That’s just nonsense.

Now, of course, we have gone to one moderator now, which I certainly agree with, and I said at the time that I would just as soon not be a panelist. I thought that there ought to be one moderator, and in the image and likeness of Jim Lehrer and Gwen Ifill, that type, which they have high integrity. That should continue, shouldn’t it, to just have one?

I don’t think there is any perfect format. During the period I was most closely associated with the commission, we tried many formats, if you recall. A single moderator, multi-panelists; particularly in 1992, what was then thought to be cutting-edge, we had voters ask the questions.

That was the town meeting in Richmond?

That was the town meeting in Richmond. And there were many variations. And there is a scholar at the University of Kansas [Diana Carlin] who has done a great deal of research on this. My recollection of her research is that it didn’t really make a whole lot of difference to the voter. And that’s really what this is about, is the voter.

In ’92, you remember, our colleagues Jules Witcover and Jack Germond wrote, using this as the wheel for their book [Mad As Hell: Revolt at the Ballot Box, 1992], that it said it all when George Bush kept looking at his watch at the Richmond debate. Do you think that was a telling time in that debate?

That’s certainly something a lot of people recall about that debate. It’s very strange what happened that day. President George H.W. Bush came in under the agreement that each candidate got an hour to kind of look over the terrain. And because of the unusual format we were using and the unusual place we were doing it — we were doing it in a college gym, which is, from a standpoint of a television producer, a very difficult place to work — President Bush came in for his check of the camera angles and that sort of thing, and he just took a superficial look around. He didn’t really seem very interested. And he started to walk away. And his press secretary at the time, Marlin Fitzwater, turned around, and I could see him talking to President Bush. And Marlin came back and talked to me. And he said: “I want to make sure I understand exactly what’s going to happen here. The people are going to be sitting on three sides?” I said, “That’s right.” [Fitzwater said:] “And the president and the other two candidates . . .” — you remember that was a three-person debate — “they will be just sitting there on those chairs you have there, Ed? And they will be free to walk around?” I said, “That’s right. They will be wearing wireless microphones.” And I could tell that he could see this was not going to be something that President Bush would be particularly comfortable with. And sure enough, that night, he was not comfortable with it. And it showed.

It’s almost a given that some candidate, not of either party but some independent, will probably run and not hit the 15 percent threshold and sue the commission [for not being included in the debates] It’s happened before. But in every case the court has thrown it out. Is that going to probably happen again?

I would guess so. But again, I don’t want to get in the forecasting business. But the guidelines that the commission came up with for third-party candidates I think are highly defensible. And the courts have sustained it. It’s not just 15 percent. It’s a consensus of leading journalists, bureau chiefs of major news organizations in Washington, and that sort of thing. There are a number of yardsticks that are applied. And the courts have said those are sensible yardsticks. 

Let me just go in a little bit about the cost of the debates for the candidates. Now this, of course, is during the general-election campaign. And the candidates who are raising huge amounts of money for the primaries will be constricted once they are nominated. Now, from February 5 to the conventions, how are you going to keep this thing alive? Is it all going to be television advertising? Are candidates going to just sort of make a hiatus in there? Because I believe that the Republicans are not meeting until almost Labor Day in Minneapolis. And that’s a long time from February 5. So how do you sustain interest? And do you run negative advertising on your opponent, to tear him down? How do you see it?

Well, it’s not exactly unprecedented. We saw a very, very long fallow period after the candidates were, essentially, selected in the last two cycles, as I recall. And the period between the time when the candidates were known and the real campaign began, I thought, was a wonderful time for investigative journalists to go and look at their backgrounds and really dig through their past records. The other thing is, the candidates were raising money during that period of time. Americans have other things going on in their lives. It’s not like in Washington where everybody obsesses about it. They have other things going on in their lives. And they don’t even think about who they are going to vote for. Or maybe they have already made up their minds that, after all, a campaign is really only about 8 or 10 percent of the electorate.

Well, given the early start this year, I daresay even the junkies are going to have burnout.

They are going to be sick of it, yeah. The cycle is deeply flawed.

In the three presidential and vice presidential debates — and, of course, this time there won’t be any sitting vice president or [president] — the candidates usually make it their point to come to Washington, or if they don’t, some location where they go through practice sessions. They call in a lot of advisers. Doesn’t that get awfully expensive?

You would have to ask somebody else about that. I don’t think so. But there is a very good guy to talk to about that named Brady Williamson in Madison, Wisconsin. Brady has been preparing Democratic debate candidates at least going back to 1992. And I know that he worked with Hillary Clinton in her Senate reelection debate in New York last year. And I know that he worked with [John] Kerry during the runup to the 2004 debates. So he would be a better source than I am. I can’t imagine it cost him very much money, though.

To do that?

No. They hire a barn and some hay bales.

Well, that means getting hotel rooms and everything for people, flying them in.

I think they get donors to pick up that. The actual cost of the debate — it may have gone up since I stopped doing it — but it was about a half a million dollars. And the host had to put that money up because the Commission on Presidential Debates doesn’t have any independent source of funds.

And usually, particularly on a college campus, it’s an honor to have it.

Sure.

And there will be competition again this time?

Oh, I am sure there will, yeah.

Maybe more than ever because the first woman could be elected, and the first African-American. So I think there is liable to be a large list.

Yeah, I think so. And that’s always the case. It’s a wonderful learning experience for young people. And I remember, particularly, going to Washington University in St. Louis and being asked to speak to the students. I remember being asked to speak to an undergraduate class of political-science students and also to a graduate class in, if I recall correctly, the business school, because different people were interested in different aspects. And of course, in each case they held out, and successfully, to get some of their students into the hall [for the debate]. It’s a wonderful learning experience. And it ought to be. Debates ought to be held on university campuses, if at all possible, as a learning experience for students.

Before we leave the debates, I have to ask you, because you are the principal man back on the stage talking to Jim Lehrer, in his ear. We always think of when [Michael] Dukakis was asked by [CNN’s] Bernie Shaw about his wife being raped. And he went into a long dissertation about drugs in California, but way off the subject. Was that probably the most pivotal time you [remember]? Because I know several people, I can almost hear in the audience — since I was in the audience then, on the Democratic side — just gasping that the governor of Massachusetts, instead of hitting it out of the park, had reacted that way.

That’s not the most memorable moment for me.

During the eight debates that I produced, the most memorable moment was in Omaha, Nebraska, [in] the [1988] vice presidential debate.

The [Lloyd] Bentsen-[Dan] Quayle [debate]?

Bentsen-Quayle, when Bentsen delivered what we now know was a well-rehearsed line about, “I knew Jack Kennedy. And you are no Jack Kennedy.” And in the control room, which is where I was, there was a gasp. Because it was clear that he had scored an overwhelming debate point. But bear in mind that where I am sitting during a presidential debate is in the control room. And I am flanked by four or five professional technicians and one man who is holding a stopwatch. And we need to concentrate on what we are doing, so there is no kidding around. It is silent back there. We are listening. We are watching. We are living in fear of what happened in 1976, when there was a technical failure. And everybody in my world of television news knew who the executive producer was. And he was a very good television producer, but he was victimized by a technical failure. So I was always haunted by the concern that something would go wrong. And that’s the largest audience for any broadcast that I ever produced. And I produced a lot of broadcasts, several thousand television broadcasts over a period of years. And you don’t want anything to go wrong. But I’ll tell you one other anecdote about that.

Let’s hear that.

Again, it was in Omaha. We had what’s called a full-facilities rehearsal the day before the actual debate. And that means all of the cameras are on, all of the lights are on, all of the audio is on, and people who are stand-ins for the candidates are out there on the stage. And we go through everything to make sure that the television facilities are working properly, because it’s a complicated television broadcast to do.

And in the middle of that rehearsal, suddenly there was a power failure. All of the lights went out. Everything went dead. And it was just stunning to me. And I called the president of the local power company and said, “What went wrong?” And he said, “Some birds landed on the transformer that we had temporarily rigged outside the arena where you guys are having your event tomorrow night.” And I said, “How are you going to assure that won’t happen tomorrow?”

He said, “Well, we are going to put our heads together a ndwe are going to figure it out.” And I said, “Well, sir, I am not a man given much to bluster, but if that happens tomorrow night I am going to give everybody your home phone number.” And what happened the next night was very interesting. They figured out a way to brown out whole areas of Omaha, Nebraska. There are people who lived in Omaha, Nebraska, who were trying to see [the debate] as their television picture got smaller, and smaller, and smaller.

[I’m sure they were asking,] “What’s going on?” But they figured out a backup way to make sure the power supply was not interruptible.

I never knew this. As one postscript to your Bentsen-Quayle , I knew Senator Bentsen pretty well. And when he delivered the remark, the camera shot over to Quayle. And it looked like he’d been hit in the face with a dead fish. Of course later we found out that when Bentsen said, “I know Jack Kennedy — he is a friend of mine,” they weren’t friends. He barely knew him in the House.

Barely?

But, of course, Quayle didn’t know that. And if he had known, he could have probably had a rejoinder, “Well, now wait a minute, senator, you didn’t know [him], you just were in the House together.” They weren’t close friends at all.

But one other thing about Bentsen, of all of the candidates that I dealt with — and particularly in that hour when they would come that was private, when no press was allowed in the hall and a minimal number of technicians were there — you could tell a lot about how important this event was to their campaign by how concerned they were about it. I mean, these were people who have been on a public stage all of their lives, and they are not going to suddenly get nervous about something like this. But there was always tension, and for a good reason. The stakes are very, very high. But Bentsen came in that day for his rehearsal, and he had a couple of political advisers with him. But he also had his wife with him. And she was a woman with enormous personality. And whether she was with him all of the time during that campaign or not, I don’t know. But her presence relaxed him. And when he finished his run-through, he was so relaxed and so full of himself, and thinking that this was going to be his night, that he picked her up, physically picked her up, and waltzed her around the stage with her feet off of the floor.

Off the floor?

Yes. He was ebullient about what was about to happen.

That’s another story I have never heard.

Yeah, he was very relaxed when he went out there. Quayle also came in with his wife, Marilyn, for their rehearsal. And he behaved as you would expect he would. He was serious and purposeful. But he was also concerned. Bear in mind, the vice presidential candidates only get one shot. Presidential candidates get three. If they screw up one, they have another one coming.

They can recover.

Yeah.

In light of the fact that all of this money is being raised, I do want to ask you just a little bit about television advertising. I am told it is going to be more costly than ever this time. And when we are looking at states like Texas, Florida, California, and New Jersey all holding primaries on February 5, and candidates not being able to, obviously, get around to all of those places and trying to afford advertising in the L.A., San Francisco areas, Dallas, Houston — isn’t the cost just going to be astronomical?

It sure is. It’s going to be enormously expensive. And in each of those states you just mentioned — Florida, Texas, and California — there are five, six, seven media markets, and you have to be in all of them. But let me just say two things. It’s easy to pillory the rates charged by television stations. They make a lot of money in an election year. But Congress passed a law some years ago that requires them to charge the lowest rate for television advertising, which they hate because [political] television advertising is a big tune-out. People hate it. It drives people away from their broadcasts. And particularly local news, the political consultants run as many of their ads as they can either in news programs or adjacent to news programs. And the stations know that that’s a big tune-out. And that hurts them financially, because local news is where they make their money.

Does this just apply to local stations and not the networks? 

Yes, because you are buying market by market. You are not buying network television.

The other point I want to make is that political consultants make most of their money out of the percentage that they get out of what the candidate spends on television.

They are the ones who get rich?

They were getting rich. And that’s a no-brainer. Where else are you going to advertise? But the real question this time, it seems to me, is what else do you spend your money on? As every marketer is trying to figure out right now, how do you reach the people who haven’t made up their minds? Those are the only people you care about. You want to reach those people. How do you do it in a cost-effective way?

That’s television, radio.

Now, for a lot of political consultants, they have an economic interest in spending as much money as possible on television time. But I am not sure, if I were a candidate, that I would accept that this time, because the television audience has fractured, and it’s very difficult to reach people on television in the masses that you are paying for. Let’s take, for example, New Jersey. There is no local television station in the entire state of New Jersey. I mean, [there are] the little ones, but people watch either Philadelphia television or New York television if they live in New Jersey. You have to buy those two very expensive markets to reach people in New Jersey. And you know that fewer than a third of the people you are paying for in the New York area are eligible to vote in New Jersey.

Let me ask you, and I know you don’t want to make predictions, but give me a projection on this: If a candidate, say on February 3, wanted to take out 30 minutes in a sort of infomercial, like Perot did in the Los Angeles and San Francisco markets, say over two or three stations, what would that cost? About a quarter of a million dollars?

Oh, I think it would cost more than that. Of course, it would depend on what time of day. But the only time you would want to be on is prime time. So you would have to figure that. But see, people now can get so many channels that the only way, really, to be effective is to have what’s called a roadblock, where you run something on as many channels as you can afford at the same time. Now you are not going to be able to run a 30-minute infomercial that way. The best thing you can hope for, it seems to me, and I am not a political consultant, is to do something that is newsworthy, so that excerpts from the broadcast appear in the local news programs all over the state. That’s the real secondary effect that you would get from doing something like that.

We all know that the Internet has replaced direct mail as a prime source [of campaign funds], other than the big, fat-cat money-raisers. Is the Internet also a way to try to woo voters, on your website? Or is that more to fire up your own troops? I mean, are voters going to go on the Clinton, [Barack] Obama, [John] Edwards websites because they are just for that candidate? Are voters going to be swayed by going on the Internet and seeing the latest news from candidates?

I suppose there are some people who will do that. But there are a lot of people who vote because they like the way the candidate looks, or they have a gut instinct. The people who make rational voting choices, I suspect that’s a pretty low number. By rational I mean they are not knee-jerk Republicans or knee-jerk Democrats who are willing to vote for their candidate or their party under any circumstance. I think that will be a fairly low number but a very significant number, because my guess is they are highly motivated voters. But bear in mind that we really don’t know the impact of the Internet on politics, other than as a fundraising tool.

Now there is very good work going on at George Washington University, right here [in Washington, D.C.] They have been doing some significant research projects on Internet voting and campaigning. But to the best of my knowledge, and I am probably not the best source on this, I haven’t seen any research based on the impact of the Internet on national politics. There has been very good research done, for example, on the [former] governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura, on his election.

But other than what we know, Joe Trippi, who is a political consultant who figured out the impact of the web and raised a load of money for Howard Dean. And I know that there are people who are blogging, and people who have been hired by these candidates this time, who are very smart about the Internet. But I think we are all swimming in uncharted water here.

Final question. Both of us know and respect the pollster Andy Kohut [the executive director of The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press]. Andy thinks that right now there is more interest in this presidential campaign than he has seen in past years. With the burnout factor, do you think that can be sustained? Or is it going to have its ups and downs?

Well, Andy’s research shows that the interest is pretty superficial. And he attributes it to the fact that it’s inescapable. It’s on all of these channels and in the papers all of the time. So I am not sure how we are going to come out at the end of the day. I suspect that we are going to be very, very tired of all of this by the end. The first week in February of 2008, we are going to be tired of it.