Editor takes center stage in Iowa debates

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff

DES MOINES -- Many voters may not have heard of Carolyn Washburn, but she's a familiar -- and critically important -- person to the presidential candidates in town this week for back-to-back debates.

Washburn, editor of The Des Moines Register, which is cosponsoring the Republican debate Wednesday and Democratic forum on Thursday, has been boning up on the contenders for nearly a year, reading their books, scouring other media for stories about them, and sharing private lunches and more formal office meetings with candidates eager for the Iowa newspaper's influential endorsement.

And it will be Washburn alone who will moderate the nationally televised debates and ask all the questions, following Register tradition since the paper started hosting presidential debates in 1980.

Washburn said today that the debates are the close of "a very long process'' of learning about the candidates -- including reading at least one of the books written by each major candidate and having many lunches and meetings with them.

"By the time I get on stage, I will have spent between one and four to five hours with most of the candidates,'' Washburn said. "I got to look them in the eye and get a sense of who they are.''

David Yepsen, the Register's veteran political columnist, said that the candidates should expect a grilling by Washburn. "She asks tough questions and pointed questions,'' Yepsen said. "She doesn't mess around. She's really being diligent about this.''

To prepare for the debates, Washburn said she solicited questions from Register readers and staff. She declined to say how today's and tomorrow's debates will differ from earlier ones, saying she did not want to tip off the candidates.

But she said she wanted the face-offs to provide "some clarity'' about the differences among the contenders, who are finding themselves in an increasingly tight race in Iowa, whose Jan. 3 caucuses kick off the nomination contests.

The debates "are a defining moment for Iowans. So many of them are undecided,'' she said.

Washburn, 45, reported for the Lansing State Journal in Michigan and Rochester Democrat and Chronicle in New York before moving to the Idaho Statesman in Boise, where she became executive editor in 1999. In September 2005, she became editor at the Register. She has moderated other political debates for the Register, but this week's high-profile debates will be her first presidential events.