ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 8, 1996 TAG: 9610080055
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SUNDAY night's nationally televised debate between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole won't go down as an epochal event in the history of American politics. If the public-opinion polls are correct, and Clinton's healthy-to-huge lead persists, the event may not be remembered at all by Election Day.
That would be undeserved. Whatever happens between now and Nov. 5, this presidential debate offered a fair measure of substance, and brought out genuine policy differences.
Granted, both candidates waltzed around several of the important challenges facing the nation. And both men too often chose to reiterate campaign boilerplate rather than answer a question directly. The exchange probably would have been livelier if Ross Perot had been around, and possibly if the format had called for the candidates to ask questions of each other.
But liveliness isn't the be-all and end-all of political debates. Illumination is a virtue, too. After Sunday night, for example, Americans should have a reasonably good idea of how the candidates differ on economic issues.
Clinton, boasting of the reduced deficits, jobs growth and the first stirrings in a quarter-century of after-inflation wage growth that have accompanied his nearly four years in the White House, repeated his view that targeted tax cuts matched by specified spending cuts is the way to continue that progress. Dole reiterated his call for a broader tax cut and promised it would not interfere with the march to a balanced budget, though he did not specify the spending cuts for doing so.
The relatively substantive nature of the debate was due in large measure to its relative civility. Time not spent on hurling empty invective can become time spent discussing the issues.
More broadly, civility also includes Dole's declining to attack Clinton for renewed tensions in the Middle East; the troubles of that region are too complex, Dole indicated, to be fodder for partisan strife in this country.
The turn to civility may simply be politicians' response to what polls and focus groups are telling them. But whatever the cause, the development is welcome.
LENGTH: Short : 45 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICS PRESIDENTby CNB