For debate monitors, controversy never flagged
For the audience watching on CNN, the sparring over Howard Dean's desire to attract votes from "guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks" occupied the early moments of Tuesday's 90-minute Democratic presidential debate at Faneuil Hall. For the brigade of journalists monitoring the event in the "filing center" in Quincy Market, the skirmish never ended.
While the candidates moved on to such issues as gay rights and Iraq, a stream of instant press releases -- hustled into the media center by fresh-faced troops called "rapid response runners" -- fanned the flames of the controversy throughout the debate.
Dean's campaign quickly issued a statement citing his history in "fighting bigotry." Wesley Clark responded with a statement from his communications director insisting that "Dean needs to condemn the [Confederate] flag." The John Kerry forces produced a transcript of the exchange in which Al Sharpton and John Edwards attacked Dean over the flag. Dean struck back with a release explaining that when he raised the idea of appealing to Southerners with "Confederate flag decals" in February, it "was met with enthusiastic applause from a racially diverse group of party leaders."
At the same time the candidates were battling for viewers' votes, their dueling releases may have been fulfilling another vital function. They were the weapons in the insular war for the hearts and minds of journalists, who, in the early stages of a campaign, often divide the field into front-runners and longshots. It is a high-stakes exercise in perception, positioning, and spin. In fact, the Quincy Market venue where candidates and reporters gathered to trade debate post-mortems was called "the spin room."
Most Americans are not focusing on an election that is a year away. But a certain sameness and routine have already set in for journalists who have been covering several months of debates. In the moments before Tuesday's faceoff, cosponsored by CNN and Rock the Vote, CNN "Inside Politics" anchor Judy Woodruff said she was looking for "daylight among the . . . candidates, any new shred of information or insight."
"I don't want to hear them go after Bush," she added a bit wearily.
A sizable portion of the approximately 350 journalists who requested credentials camped out in the filing center -- normally the home of the Comedy Connection -- where posters of the Marx Brothers and Buster Keaton adorned the walls. And there was plenty of laughter emanating from the press corps, thanks to a loosey-goosey format that encouraged one questioner to ask the candidates which rivals they would most like to "party with" and prompted moderator Anderson Cooper to warn the pols that their repetition of certain favorite sound bites had inspired a campus drinking game in which someone downs a shot every time a stock phrase is repeated.
But for insiders, much of the real action took place in the spin room, where candidates worked the crowd and conventional wisdom began to congeal.
Entering moments after the debate ended, Dennis Kucinich plunged into the gantlet of cameras and microphones, insisting he is the only candidate with an "exit strategy" for Iraq and announcing that "the media is starting to cover my campaign." One of the Kucinich campaign mantras has been that he can't get as much media exposure as the alleged top tier of candidates. And 27 minutes into the debate he issued a release complaining Kerry had already received two questions while some candidates had not been asked any, a disparity that "violates the stated rules of the forum."
After the debate, Edwards did an interview with WTKK-FM talk-show hosts Jay Severin and Jim Braude and was asked if he'd continue to target Dean on the Confederate flag. "It depends whether he's willing to admit he's wrong," the North Carolina senator declared.
Among journalists, much of the spin-room talk was about Dean's being forced to defend his use of the racially polarizing symbol of the flag.
"I think Howard Dean had something of a meltdown on the crucifix of the Confederate flag," observed Congressional Quarterly columnist Craig Crawford. Washington Post political writer Mark Leibovich thought that being stuck in the middle of the flag debate was "a very uncomfortable posture" for Dean.
"Well, Dean was obviously attacked," said Time magazine senior writer Joe Klein. "But the thing that stands out in my mind is these guys have been hammering each other over minutiae."
A few hours later, that Dean buzz had turned into headlines. The debate stories in yesterday's editions of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe all led with the Confederate flag fracas. The Hotline, a widely read electronic political newsletter, headlined its debate coverage with "Dean Spars On Stars And Bars." Yesterday Dean acknowledged the furor over his remarks by saying he regretted the "pain" that he had caused.
But if journalists quickly anointed Dean the big loser on Tuesday night, who was the big winner? Based on the knot of reporters who surrounded her in the spin room, it was Alethea Pieters, the young fiscal policy analyst for the Massachusetts Senate who had the gumption to ask the presidential aspirants whom they would most like to party with.
In that moment, a media star was born.
Mark Jurkowitz can be reached at jurkowitz@globe.com.
