ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 22, 1996 TAG: 9609230083
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
President Clinton and Republican rival Bob Dole will face off in two debates this fall without Ross Perot, the two major-party candidates decided Saturday after nine hours of negotiations.
Representatives of the Dole and Clinton campaigns said they agreed to debate Sunday Oct. 6 in Hartford, Conn., and Wednesday Oct. 16 in San Diego.
Vice presidential candidates Al Gore and Jack Kemp will face off Wednesday Oct. 9 in St. Petersburg, Fla.
All three nationally televised debates will last 90 minutes, starting at 9 p.m. ``It means they're substantive and they're meaningful rather than just sound bites,'' Clinton's lead negotiator, Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor, said as the teams emerged late Saturday from negotiations spanning three meetings and a total of 14 hours.
The second presidential debate is to be conducted town-hall style with voters asking questions, a forum that served Clinton well in 1992 and that his campaign insisted on again this year.
Kantor said his group pushed for the inclusion of Perot and his Reform Party running mate, Pat Choate. ``We did everything we can,'' Kantor told reporters afterward. ``The Dole campaign took the position they would not debate with Mr. Perot or Mr. Choate, and there would not be debates unless we agreed.''
Dole's team disputed the remarks, contending that Kantor yielded on the Perot question early in the day. ``It wasn't a bloody fight,'' said former South Carolina Gov. Carroll Campbell, the lead negotiator for Dole.
Less than an hour before the final agreement was disclosed, Perot announced that he would file a lawsuit Monday morning in Washington seeking an injunction against sponsorship of the debates by the Commission on Presidential Debates if the Reform ticket was excluded.
``Courts have regularly struck down rules which say that incumbents get favored positions on the ballots. This is the same kind of stacking the deck against minor-party candidates,'' Perot attorney Jamin Raskin said in a statement.
The bipartisan commission recommended last week that Perot be denied a spot in the debates because he has no ``realistic chance'' of winning the election.
Perot was widely viewed as a potential detractor for Dole in any three-way debate, and the Dole campaign had insisted on abiding by the commission ruling.
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICS CONGRESSby CNB