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Frank Fahrenkopf, Jr.

Frank Fahrenkopf, Jr., is the co-chairman and co-founder of the Commission on Presidential Debates, a tax-exempt organization that was established in 1987 to sponsor and produce presidential and vice presidential debates during each general-election period. He was the chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1983 to 1989. Fahrenkopf is the president and chief executive officer of the American Gaming Association, which represents the gambling industry.

John W. Mashek interviewed Fahrenkopf on April 4, 2007. Janet Brown, the executive director of the Commission on Presidential Debates, sat in on the interview.

When you took over the debates, or the parties did, after the League of Women Voters seemed to not just be able to bring it off, was it designed from the start with both parties as principles that it will be considered nonpartisan, bipartisan, and therefore the public should accept it?

The formation of the commission came about following two studies that were done. One was done here in Washington by CSIS [Center for Strategic and International Studies], as I remember it, when the center was still at Georgetown. I was on that commission, along with Paul, as party chairmen. There were representatives of most of the major media. I mean, even Mrs. [Katharine] Graham was on it and [William] Paley from CBS was on it. And there were four or five senators, as I remember. It was broad. And the only thing that that commission really came to agreement on is that something had to be done about the debates, that an entity had to be created — Bob Strauss and Mel Laird were the co-chairmen — that it should be a freestanding entity that did nothing but produce general-election debates. At the same time, there was a study going on at the Kennedy School [of Government at Harvard University]. I forget who sponsored it.

I think I remember that, too. But I can’t remember who sponsored it.

And they also were looking at the presidential election process. And they came to the same conclusion. So, as a result of that, Paul and I were pushed pretty hard by Strauss and Laird and created the Commission on Presidential Debates. Now when it was first created, when it was first announced, it was done in the nature that it was the parties that were doing it. Because if you read the recommendation, I think, of the report that came out of CSIS, it was that only the parties could guarantee that the candidates would show up. Little did the commission know. But it became very clear, as the lawyers got involved and we were organizing it, that you couldn’t have an organization that was run by the two political parties. It had to be a nonpartisan entity. So, following its creation, we started implementing in ’87?

For all intents and purposes, we view it as a nonpartisan entity. I mean, I am proud to say I have probably been beaten up more than chairman Kirk has, because the Republicans, particularly the Bush family, of course, never liked the debates. And I always said, “I don’t have a Republican hat on, I have my U.S.A. hat on.” I know Paul feels the same way in his role. And we are proud of our commission. It’s a broad-ranging, wonderful group of people. We are very, very proud to be associated with it.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that I was on a panel in ’84. And two panels . . .

You didn’t get knocked off?

No. With the League of Women Voters, which almost didn’t come off because of the circus atmosphere around it.

Choosing reporters?

Choosing reporters. And of course later, we went to just one moderator, which is the best method. But I think in the interest of the public knowing more, when the two panels were selected in ’88 and ’80, all sorts of rumors and everything got out. Everybody has three strikes, like [with prosecutors and defense attorneys selecting] a jury. Both sides have to agree. No, they don’t have to agree. Did you get in on that when you were there?

We weren’t, I mean, we knew. And if you go back and probably look at the records — I never have — of the CSIS study and the one up at Harvard, clearly the episode with 90-some reporters were either crossed off or said were unacceptable — that led some news agencies to say, “We’ll never let our people participate.”
I mean, we ran into that one year when we wanted somebody from The Wall Street Journal, Jerry Seib. And he wanted to do it, but Al Hunt [the newspaper’s Washington bureau chief] wouldn’t let him. But everyone was ticked off at what had happened. So we never really had that problem back in the days when we were doing panels and so forth. And we did come up with a system where, if someone really objected to somebody, it would be more like a peremptory challenge with a jury. But, I mean, we were very fortunate along the way. What year was it that everyone agreed going in, Jim Lehrer could do them all. And there was no problem. And, of course now this last time, we didn’t consult with anybody. We picked the four moderators.

Picked Jim.

We picked Jim.

Gwen Ifill?

And Jim has been with us from the beginning. My rule is if Jim Lehrer wants to do one of our debates, he has the right to do one. I mean, he has been there.

He has the reputation.

Gave us the integrity. And Gwen, and then we had Charlie Gibson, and he did the town hall. And then Bob Schieffer did the final one. And we came up, and we named the debate. We didn’t consult with the campaigns. And I think that’s our rule in the future. As far as I’m concerned, we are going to name them. If they don’t like them, they can go debate somewhere else.

There has always been, human nature being what it is, a debate on the debates. How confident are you going into this next debate season that we can get an OK before going in from the candidates?

Yeah. Well, Paul [Kirk], Janet [Brown], and I have been at this for quite a while. And I think our perception always was that this was going to be a process of two steps forward, one back. Having been involved in presidential campaigns, we know that there is nothing that the candidates or the people who are running the campaigns hate as here, a month before the election is going to take place, suddenly some outside people are coming in and creating an environment that the candidates aren’t going to have any control over. So we always know that to succeed we had to go two steps forward, one back, two steps forward, one back.

And we got involved, very often, in the debate over the debates. We really, sort of, in my view, got out of that in 2000. I think that is where we probably asserted ourselves more than at any previous time. And I can remember where I was pretty firm with the negotiators that the commission was not going to move. This is where we were. If they didn’t want to go with us, they could go somewhere else. They agreed. This time, three years ago you may remember, the candidates sat down and created this long memorandum of understanding. And they demanded that we sign it and that the four moderators sign it. And we said: “Absolutely not. We are not signing it. That’s not the way it’s going to happen. And if you don’t want to debate with us, you can go elsewhere.”

We have no franchise. We are not the government of the United States. We are not spending government money. Anybody else can meet the requirements of the law and do it. And so this time, being the one where the first time in what, 50-some years, you are not going to have an incumbent president or vice president involved in the process. And to be candid with you, we have always had less problems with the Democrats. I mean, the Democrats pretty much, right from day one when we make the announcement, as we do a year ahead of time saying, “Here are the dates, here is where it’s going to be, et cetera,” they usually accept. I mean, there is usually no problem.

The leading candidates right now all seem to be comfortable on their feet — I mean, if you take the top three. Now we may have a candidate come out of nowhere, but all of them seem very comfortable in debates. But let’s go back a little bit. Am I right? Ross Perot got in the ’92 [debates]; he had a good standing in the polls. He didn’t get in the ’96 [debates], though. He was in ’96, too, with Dole . . .

No. But let’s go back to 1980. In 1980 the League [of Women Voters] adopted the 15 percent rule, that you had to be at 15 percent in the polls to be invited. And that’s when they invited John Anderson. And I was there. I was in Baltimore that night that John Anderson debated Ronald Reagan.

And I was, too.

And Jimmy Carter said, “I’m not going to do it, I’m not going to do it.”

Carter didn’t show.

And then by the time the second debate rolled around, he had fallen below 15 percent. And therefore Carter accepted and you had that. When we took over in ’88, we thought about whether just the flat number was the right way to go. And we decided with consulting. We had an advisory group led by Professor Richard Neustadt of Harvard. I can’t remember all of the people on it. It was a pretty distinguished group of people who were in academia, political scientists, and so forth. And I said, “Well, maybe where you are in the polls is only one aspect of it.” And we worked out something complicated that depended upon the opinions of political-science professors at universities, how much money you had raised, how many inches you were getting in newspapers.

It got to be absurd.

It was quite complicated. But it was reaching for fairness. What is the fair way to do this thing? And we ended up extending an invitation to [Ross] Perot, because it was a very, very interesting year in ’92; in fact, when he dropped out, at a time, claiming that — I am trying to remember — the Republicans interfered with his daughter’s wedding.

Bush forces interfered . . .

With the wedding. He was leading in the polls.

About a 34 percent or something?

He was in good shape. And then he came back in. And while he had dropped in the polls, as far as money being raised, the ballots he was on, and so forth, we felt that it was legitimate to put him in. And we invited him in. And he participated in the debates. Well, the following four years, he wasn’t even close.

He was six [percent] or something like that, maybe less.

Yeah. It was never there. And then we eventually, after thinking and applying that rule, went back to what the League of Women Voters had done. Take 15 percent. And we debated among ourselves. Should it be 19 [percent]? Should it be 12 [percent]? Whatever, you are talking about a number. And as you know, [Pat] Buchanan has sued us. Perot has sued us. [Ralph] Nader has sued us.

Perot did sue for the ’96 [debate] that he wasn’t on?

Yeah, [saying] that the 15 percent rule is unfair. “It should be 10 [percent],” whatever it should be. And we have been sustained in the courts. And we think the 15 percent rule is a fair one. If it’s a month before the election and you are not at 15 percent, I can tell you, you are really not a major contender. And our view has always been that you shouldn’t be looking at the debates, to be invited to participate in the debates, so you can become a contender. Our philosophy is, only the people who have already proven themselves to be contenders get to debate. So there is a difference in the viewpoint.

So Ralph Nader, then, became an irritant, if I may use that word. I read the lawsuit; was it mainly directed at the parties shouldn’t run it, or that he was being deprived of his constitutional rights to appear in debates and the corporate sponsors were running the show?

Yeah. He doesn’t like corporations, so anytime a corporation is involved it’s got to be tainted. I mean, that’s fundamentally it. And that somehow, because we use corporate sponsors, they were unduly affecting who was going to be the nominee and so forth. He also made the allegation, because Paul and I were former party chairmen, that the parties were pulling the strings and running it. It was all of those sorts of allegations. But again, the courts reviewed it. His arguments were not that much different than what Perot and Buchanan had alleged, and Lenora Fulani had alleged in prior [elections]. I mean, the only people who have made any money out of this commission are the lawyers. It’s just amazing.

Well again, as a personal disclosure here to be fair, having been on two debate panels when there were reporters’ panels, I frankly had no idea who the sponsors were. Nobody approached me. Janet Brown, Ed Fouhy, nobody told me what questions to ask. Not one corporate identity sent me an e-mail, “Why don’t you ask about this —why don’t you?” A lot of people from the far left and far right sent me e-mails, “Why don’t you ask this?” — which I promptly discarded. But the feeling persists on part of the severe critics that somehow this is tainted. And I don’t know how you dispel that.

I don’t either. I guess one of the ways to dispel it is people who really cared about that could interview people who have been moderators or reporters, and have them say, “No one told us.” About the only direction that we give in a debate, unless it’s a debate focused totally on foreign policy or domestic policy, as we did last time, we fundamentally try to say, “Try to spend 50 percent of your time on domestic and 50 percent on [foreign].” That’s it. We don’t know — Janet, I, Paul, the commission — we have no idea what questions are going to be asked. We don’t dictate. You know some of the people. You would have been offended if I’d have come up to you and said . . .

Oh, I would have gone to Janet Brown and said, “Count me out.”

Absolutely. That’s one of the reasons we’ve gone to the single moderator, because in the days of the panels, panelists are normally very proud that they have been picked. And they are working very hard on what their question is going to be. And panelist number one asks the question. The time is up. It’s now panelist number two’s turn. Now, it might be that it’s so apropos for a follow-up here, but panelist number two . . .

You’ve stuck to question number two.

I mean, panelist number two is not going to follow up and make number one look good as a reporter. So we just decided, and we experimented with it. As I remember it, half of the debate at Michigan State [University] was with Jim [Lehrer] as a single moderator, and then the other half as a panel. We just liked it, and we’ve just gone that single-moderator way. The only thing the single moderator has to do is if it’s not one topic, to try to get 50 percent, either way, with foreign policy and domestic. And then it’s themselves.

So, if truth be told, you wouldn’t be surprised if the commission got sued again next time, would you?

I would not. I can assure you that there will be somebody who thinks that unless they are invited to participate in the debate, they just don’t have a chance, and that they’ll file the lawsuits. I mean, it comes at us every way I can think of — tax-wise. I mean, there have been suits filed before the Federal Election Commission. To tell you the truth, I am not really concerned about it. I mean, we have litigated. And the federal courts have looked at this stuff. And the Federal Election Commission has looked at this stuff. And we have survived. I mean, we don’t want to spend the attorney [fees], but we probably have the thing already briefed.

Let me ask you a little bit about — and again, this is not in your line, but I think you’d probably have an idea, with your experience — when it gets into the presidential debates, and I think everybody thinks it has some bearing on the election, and some think it has a lot of bearing, that particularly the candidates who are behind want to make the best showing. And they come to the city where the debate is. And there are tryouts. Bob Barrett plays the different role for the Democrats by questioning Republicans.

You are talking about candidate prep?

Correct. A lot of money is spent. I mean, is that one of the major costs of the television advertising?

Well, we don’t pay for that.

No, I know that. 

Yeah, and I don’t know, necessarily, that it’s done in the city.

Well, the president can do it here [in Washington].

They normally will go away with a person. See, [Republican Senator] Judd Gregg [of New Hampshire], as I remember, was one of the people who worked with the president. Bob Barrett has done it a number of times. With Reagan, we didn’t have a standard, as I remember. We just had a bunch of us who sat around and shot questions at him. And he just, “Well, let me see.”

“There you go. There you go again, Frank.”

“There you go again.” And I think it really started in earnest, probably in ’88 is when I think the prep really started. But as you know, we have to provide equal facilities backstage. And usually we do it in a gym, so normally someone gets the women’s locker room and someone gets the men’s locker room. And we drape it. And we put in the television sets for staffers. But they normally come in and they have briefing books like this. But I think most of them know what the questions are. They have been on the campaign trail.

They know what someone’s going to ask on foreign policy. And I think it’s more a time of getting their guy up. I can tell you for sure, in the last debates, in Miami, Kerry came to the hall. What we do, as far as the commission is concerned, is in the afternoon of the day of the debate, we close the hall down. We throw all of the media out and all of the camera-people out. They are out. And we allow the two candidates to come in with a small entourage of their advisers to see what it’s going to look like. So they are not walking in there cold that night.

And we’ll explain to them where the cameras are, and where their spouses will be, and so forth. I remember Joanne Kemp brought about five ties in to . . .

Make sure Jack had the right tie on?

Exactly. And Mrs. Edwards brought three shirts, as I remember, and made John change . . .

Blue, white?

Blue, white, and a pink thing, and made him go offstage and change and come out so that they can look.

It’s a great story.

And then they leave after they have had an opportunity, individually, to take a look at the hall. And then they come back, usually an hour ahead of time. And they have their briefing books. And they go in. And I remember in that debate, I remarked to Janet [Brown] that Kerry was like an athlete: ready. He was really pumped. He came in, was cheery with the cameramen. You could see this was a guy that was up for the game. He was up for what was going to happen. And I remember when the president arrived, an hour and a half later, he got out of his car and you could see he was totally exhausted.

He was hound-dogging.

Because his staff, rather than putting him away and preparing him, had him running all over Florida visiting hurricane victims right up to the last minute. And so he wasn’t mentally ready. And he looked tired that night. So, it’s like a ball game, it’s like a contest. And you have got to get up for it. So, whether it’s Barrett or some of these other people who act as the trainers, it’s just sort of to have someone there across the way so you know kind of what’s going to come from them. But I think it’s getting them up for the game that’s really important.

Let me go into another area: your other hat as RNC chairman, because you have a distinct title of being there twice during two presidential cycles; the first in ’84, the Reagan-Mondale, and then the Bush-Dukakis. How big a role did the RNC play in money-raising for the two Republican candidates? Or was that all done outside?

It’s all done outside.

You were doing support stuff?

Yeah, we do support stuff. I raised money for the RNC. I didn’t raise it for the presidential campaign. Now under the laws there are certain things that we can do and spend in a certain way, but primarily the fundraising is all done by the campaigns themselves. We didn’t get involved in that.

In light of what is going on right now, bringing you fast-forward to this campaign, with nobody probably . . .

Did you see Obama’s numbers today?

Yeah.

Was it $24 [million], something like that?

Something like that.

Two below Hillary [Clinton], yeah.

Nobody is ever going to take public financing again, if they want to be a player.

Yeah.

We are seeing, of course, a tremendous drop-off in the checkoff on the tax returns. Is public financing pretty much dead for presidential campaigns?

I think it is. I’ll tell you a story. I can remember in ’88, Bush One [George H.W. Bush] named Bob Mosbacher to be his treasurer of the campaign to run for president. And Bob came in to see me one day. And he was very panicky, because a guy who was the head of fundraising for [Michael] Dukakis was a really bright guy, Bob Farmer.

And Farmer had somehow figured out that they could raise money in hunks of $100,000 at a time. At that time the biggest contributor to the Republican National Committee was a “Republican Eagle,” and it was $10,000. That was the max. And Farmer had created this, and apparently it was legal. The lawyers were saying it was legal the way it was being done. And so even though he was far ahead in the polls, Bush decided he wanted to do it. And I argued very vehemently against it. I said, “Just the appearance of it just bothers me.” But that was the campaign. They had the right to do what they wanted to, and they went ahead and did it. But that was sort of, in my mind, the age when the big money really started to pour into presidential politics. I mean, now that’s a long time ago, [1988], but $100,000? I mean, when the top was $10,000, you give $10,000, you were a big giver.

Well, earlier this year the pundits, most of them, estimated that to be a serious player you probably had to have between $50 million and $60 million. Well, that number’s gone up now to between $75 million and $100 million. And some candidates are raising money that will be well over $100 million.

Remember, too, the playing field has changed. This thing is going to be over by mid-February, the nominating [process]. Now remember that in the general election the candidates don’t get their money until after they are nominated. So have any denied the general-election money? I think both took the general-election money. But now, how are you going to support your campaign from February to the conventions?

That’s a good point.

If you are not out there raising [money], if you have to depend on the money that you get, the federal financing, you are going to spend that to win the nomination by February. And you have six or seven months to carry your campaign.

Well, we’ll check this, but my recollection is that Senator Obama has asked the candidates to agree to take only the amount for the general [election]. I mean, in the primaries, the sky is the limit. But as you say, when the nomination is secured . . .

But I think the rules are, in the general election, I don’t think you can spend private money in the general [if you accept public funding].

I believe that’s right.

I think it has to be the federal money.

I think the numbers have gone up to, gosh, I think it was $34 million, to pay for the convention, too. But I think that was a move on his part to say, “Let’s get everybody out of here right now.”

Yeah. But if I was running a campaign, I would say, now, if it’s over by — what is it, February 5? I think that’s when, with the frontload.

February 5.

So, if it’s February, and let’s see, I don’t think the Republican convention’s until September. Is it September?

In Minneapolis.

I think it’s early September.

It’s very early September.

Yeah. So that means you have to pay rent on campaign offices. You have to pay staff. Where in the hell is that money going to come from? If you are just taking the federal money that you used to win it on February 5, you’d have to close all of that down and wait until you get your other money. So it doesn’t make sense to just rely on the matching money that you get in the general, because there is a cap.

When Governor Dukakis was nominated, there was a long interim. He went back to Massachusetts, to be governor of Massachusetts. And his lead evaporated because he was cutting ribbons and doing things with the Massachusetts Legislature while President Bush just climbed. And I think he admits that now. And I know the late Lloyd Bentsen, who was on the ticket, was just coming unglued that he still wasn’t an energetic presidential campaigner. Can a candidate like Jimmy Carter who was two or three percent in ’75 and came out of nowhere, can a candidate do that again with all of the money that is out there for the so-called top tier?

I think so, if it’s someone who has tremendous magnetism, a hero, someone who shows leadership. Yeah, I think it’s possible. I mean, it’s a long shot, it’s really, really a long shot. For example, I think right now, the strong showing of Rudy [Giuliani] has less to do with any money he has spent, because he hasn’t spent that much on ads. Most of these guys haven’t spent anything on advertising. In fact, I just saw the first [Mitt] Romney one. It’s going to start running. It is based on the perception among the American people and Republicans that he is a leader. He was strong after 9/11, even in the face of where he stands on abortion, and gun control, and some of the other issues that are normally very important to Republicans. So yeah, I think it can be done. If you have someone who has that magnetism, they could do it. It would be hard, but it can be done. It can be done.

The Republican National Committee, when you were there, just to verify this, the money that you could spend or wanted to spend would be on like get-out-the-vote [efforts] and to state committees.

Yeah.

Could you parcel any?

Our job was to identify voters, get them registered, and get them to vote.

And polling? What about polling?

And polling data and so forth, of course. Yeah, that’s kind of what we did. It was the grass roots. The television advertising and all the rest was done by the campaign, unless you could do a truly generic ad. And remember, the Clinton-Dole thing got pretty nasty at the debate over this. For example, we did some ads that didn’t mention Dukakis, didn’t mention Bush. And they were about the state of the economy, gas lines, and all the rest, and vote Republican to change that. I mean, who was the pilot who broke the sound barrier? The test pilot?

Chuck Yeager?

Chuck Yeager. Chuck Yeager did an ad for me about being strong on national defense. And he said, “When Democrats talk about closing down military bases, they are talking about endangering Americans’ future. Vote Republican.” Now that was a generic ad. It was being run during a presidential race. So you could get away with that. But those were the only kind of ads that we ran. We didn’t run very many. Most of them were paid for by the campaign.

The estimation is that candidates — senate candidates, gubernatorial candidates in the large states, and in presidential campaigns — are going to spend 65 percent to 75 percent on television and radio advertising. Does that sound about right?

Yeah, I would think so. Although I have a feeling, don’t tell me why, that people who are going to win in this — I am talking about in the primaries and as well as in the general election — it’s really going to get back to grass-roots stuff. And when you see some of the things that were done in the last campaign, hand-helds where you know somebody. I come up to you on the street, and I am a campaign worker. And you tell me you are interested in the environment. And I have got a hand-held here; I can push a button, and you can hear my candidate talk to you for two minutes. Television now, you reach a saturation point with some of this stuff, I think, where it just kind of goes over your head. That’s why we think the debates are more and more important.

Does the 20-state, mega-megaprimary on February 5 just enhance the importance of Iowa and New Hampshire?

Sure it does. That’s where they are going to be spending their money, someone who can come out of Nevada and South Carolina — those four, and they are small states. And if you can come out of there, you come out with a win. And usually [if] you come out with a win in Iowa, it helps you going into New Hampshire, because you have some steam up. And I think the same thing is true. But think about this: All of this money is going to be spent on television. That’s why when folks get to sit at home, and they turn it on, here are the two candidates, or three, whatever it is. And as Paul [Kirk] says, we see them in an unvarnished presentation. And hopefully, I am going to push like hell this time for the three formats. Remember, we are not electing the greatest debater in the world. This is someone who is going to lead the free world. I think if you see them standing behind a podium before an audience of citizens asking them questions in the town hall — and then, what we have done in the vice president, seated at a table; everyone says that the nature of the discourse changes when you are seated at the table. The podiums tend to be walls.

To hide behind, practically.

And then those debates. I mean, I thought one of the best debates we ever did was the [Joe] Lieberman-[Dick] Cheney debate down at Centre College in Kentucky. It was very good. They were seated there.

You felt closer to it, I think.

You felt closer to it. And so the people will see these presidential candidates in these three different environments talking about the issues of importance.

So, is the optimum that you, Paul [Kirk], and Janet [Brown] are hoping for is three presidential and one vice presidential?

Yeah. I think our recommendation, I mean, we haven’t heard from all of our commissioners, but I think we have already decided that we are going to go with the 15 percent rule. The board has ruled on that. And we will decide, but our recommendation is going to be three and one.

Just one final question, then. Will all of them be after Labor Day? Or with this long hiatus from February to November, I mean, if you can’t have it before the conventions, is there any thought that you might do it . . .

Well, first of all, we like to come back from Election Day, 10 days to two weeks, so that if someone does make a slip, there is a chance for them to recover by their campaign, rather than running it right up to the election. So we try to leave some time there to recover. And then you go back there, and again, with the Republicans not even meeting until September, where normally their conventions are in July and August, I mean, we haven’t looked at the window. What Janet, Paul, and I normally do is we contact all of the networks. We try to avoid Monday Night Football, Wednesday night football, Thursday night football. Remember, you run into the World Series, you run into the baseball playoffs. So we try to do the best we can. I mean, we did run into one, I don’t remember what year it was. Maybe it was with Clinton.

I think it was ’96, wasn’t it?

And a game went long, as I remember. There were extra innings. And CBS did not join us at the start.

Yeah, that’s right.

They stayed with the ball game. But we try to figure out what the dates are. Now [in] ’92, because of the president’s reticence to getting in — remember, those were the chicken costumes that showed up and finally forced him?

Right.

We did four in what, eight days?

Yeah, they were all bunched.

I mean, four in eight days.

That was a logistical nightmare.

It was a logistical nightmare, although they were very well observed. Now we don’t want to do that again. But we’ll try to spread them appropriately.