Muslims For Kucinich

DURHAM, N.H., Dec. 9

In a third-floor conference room in Washington last Thursday afternoon, Ted Koppel decided it was time to talk about the pink elephant in the room.

Ten ABC News staffers had gathered to prepare questions for yet another presidential debate, and a consensus emerged that more queries about health care or Iraq would simply produce the same scripted sound bites that had bored viewers to tears in the previous debates. The solution, they decided, lay not in the black-bindered, color-coded briefing book they had produced but in the lopsided nature of the contest itself.

"Howard Dean is not just ahead, he is head and shoulders ahead, especially in New Hampshire, and the rest of these people seem to be largely floundering," Koppel said after the meeting broke up. "They're all being dominated by a formerly invisible governor from Vermont who must know something they don't. Why is that?

"What is it about you," he planned to ask the candidates, "that's better?"

That two-hour meeting virtually ensured that the nine-candidate face-off here Tuesday night would be not only about Dean but about Koppel, and the approach would prove highly controversial. But the Koppel team was convinced the other candidates would take the cue to confront Dean, and that, they hoped, could produce some televised fireworks.

During a half-year of debates, other skilled moderators -- Tom Brokaw, Judy Woodruff, Brian Williams, Brit Hume, Anderson Cooper -- have poked and prodded the candidates with varying degrees of success. The ABC team hoped this debate would be different: It was in New Hampshire. Koppel, sharing the moderating duties with Manchester affiliate WMUR's Scott Spradling, could use the interrogation skills honed over two decades of late-night television. And "Nightline" would air a one-hour edited version of the 90-minute debate.

The goal, said ABC News political director Mark Halperin, was to force the candidates to explain "why they and their staffs tell people that Dean would be a disaster."

At 1:30 Tuesday morning, Halperin woke up, unable to sleep, and spent 40 minutes sending BlackBerry messages to Jon Banner, executive producer of "World News Tonight," about how to cover the leaked news that Al Gore would endorse Dean.

In the afternoon, as nine staffers munched on pizza and tapped on their laptops here at the University of New Hampshire, Halperin huddled with Koppel. They agreed that the Gore endorsement was a big story. Koppel decided to ask about it in the debate's second half, when the looser format -- moving beyond one-minute answers -- might "get them working over each other," he said.

Koppel had bumped into a veteran Democratic operative, hostile to Dean, who tried to plant a question. Dean had said on MSNBC's "Hardball" that he had no great preference for whether U.S. or international courts would try Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden if either man were captured. Koppel was intrigued, and Halperin had the staff research the issue.

A Democratic National Committee official wanted to know how ABC would ensure that the candidates would walk onto the stage on time, rather than play what Halperin calls a game of "chicken" in which they delay leaving their greenrooms. "If these were nine normal human beings about to be on national television, they'd all stand up and go," Halperin said. He agreed to round them up.

In the theater down the hall, nine college students stood at lecterns marked with paper signs for a technical run-through. "General Clark," said the woman standing in for Koppel, "can you tell us what you'd do in Iraq?"

"We cannot allow Dick Cheney to have American governments move in and just rule everything," said a short young man in a sport coat.

In Koppel's makeshift office -- darkened like the one he keeps in Washington -- he did an interview with WMUR reporter Jean Mackin. When the lights were turned on, Mackin asked if the debate would have a big impact on the campaign. "If it doesn't, it will be my fault," he said.

What was his goal in the debate, now 31/2 hours away?

"Keep people at home from dozing off," Koppel said.

From the start, the ABC team knew they would be hamstrung by the crowd onstage. "How did Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun get into this thing?" Koppel asked. "Nobody seems to know. Some candidates who are perceived as serious are gasping for air, and what little oxygen there is on the stage will be taken up by one-third of the people who do not have a snowball's chance in hell of winning the nomination."

As the assembled staffers pitched suggestions Thursday, an unspoken etiquette took hold. If Koppel began taking notes, his personal researchers began scribbling and the discussion continued. If Koppel took no notes, his colleagues assumed he wasn't interested and moved on.

Halperin argued for a spare approach, believing that complicated questions give candidates a way out. He liked what he called "the Roger Mudd question," recalling the newsman's 1979 query to Ted Kennedy on why he wanted to be president that the senator struggled to answer.

For Dean, Halperin said, the question should be: "Do you regret not serving in the military?" If Koppel asked a long question about Dean flunking his physical and then going skiing, he would open the door for the former governor to just repeat his rote explanation.

For Sen. John Kerry, Halperin argued, the question should be why he voted to authorize the war in Iraq and has criticized it ever since. "Hand the candidate a rope and let him decide if he's going to hang himself with it," Halperin explained.

The talk at the meeting turned to Joseph Lieberman's struggling effort. The Connecticut senator had long been a critic of too much sex and violence in Hollywood entertainment. Why had none of the other candidates seized on that issue? Was there a question there?

Above all, Halperin said, they wanted to create "moments of contrast" to illuminate "whether these candidates are good on their feet, good under pressure."

Koppel had read the briefing book, which included transcripts of past debates, but he did not want to draw up a written list. "Frankly, in one minute how much could they tell me?" he asked. "It's much more interesting to see the dynamic between and among these folks."

Besides, Koppel said, "if I put it all down on cards, I'm going to spend more time worrying about 'Oops, I haven't gotten to this question or that question.' "

He wasn't sure whether his opening gambit -- inviting Dean's rivals to lambaste him -- would work. "It's possible they will just drone on," Koppel said.

The ABC staff had dismissed the idea of asking the candidates to name favorite books or songs or movies, since they all had rehearsed answers by now. But on Saturday, stranded in New York by a major snowstorm, Halperin had read a transcript of a Houston mayoral debate in which the candidates had been asked what book about urban policy they would recommend.

What if Koppel asked Kerry what book he wanted Dean to read, or Rep. Richard Gephardt what book President Bush should read? It had the element of surprise, would test their intellect and force them to talk about serious ideas, Halperin felt. He e-mailed the suggestion to Koppel.

They also needed a curveball or two for Wesley Clark. The retired general had recently been asked about a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning and, to some people's surprise, had said he supported it. Halperin wanted to find another such question -- about gay adoption, perhaps, or prayer in public schools.

Halperin made it to New Hampshire on Sunday and spent that night reviewing questions with Spradling and eliminating areas of duplication.

Koppel began the evening's debate with a flourish, asking those who believed Dean could beat Bush to raise their hands. Only Dean did. Koppel asked Kerry why he didn't.

"For a very simple reason, Ted -- I believe in my candidacy," Kerry said. Gephardt ducked by saying, "All of us think we have the best chance to beat George Bush." Lieberman said, "My chances have actually increased today" because people were "angry" that his former running mate backed Dean.

Koppel threw out the script, asking Wesley Clark whether he would accept an endorsement from the Clintons.

"You know, I've never really thought about that," Clark said.

"Oh sure, you have," Koppel said, drawing laughs. The anchor soon added that he smelled "sour grapes" in the reaction to the Gore endorsement.

Kucinich pounced. "With all due respect to you, Ted Koppel, who I admire greatly -- "

Again, Kucinich punched back. "I want the American people to see where the media takes politics in this country," he declared to loud applause. Koppel had become one of the debaters, and he had just taken a hard right to the jaw. The candidates, many of them, were in open revolt against the moderator.

Koppel pressed on, telling Sen. John Edwards that "you're not doing terrific in the polls either," and asking Kerry, "What is it that Governor Dean has done right?" That question produced groans in the pressroom.

Afterward, the reviews were not kind as reporters jammed into the spin room and the buzz was more about Koppel than any of the Democrats.

"It was a bit heavy on process," Gephardt said.

Joe Trippi, Dean's campaign manager, criticized the "when are you going to get out" questions, saying: "We had all that garbage thrown at us back in January and February. The fact that the questions weren't aimed at us didn't make them any more edifying."

"We were watching and saying, 'God, this is awful,' " said Kerry volunteer Ricia McMahon.

"Big loser tonight: Koppel," said Kucinich spokesman Jeff Cohen.

Time columnist Joe Klein said he was disappointed that Koppel hadn't used more of his foreign-policy expertise. "Those kinds of questions about polling and money might have been appropriate in an election where nothing's really at stake," he said.

Koppel and ABC wanted controversy, and as the journalists and operatives poured out onto the snow-covered campus, it was clear they had gotten it, in spades.

Koppel, reached at dinner, dismissed the complaints. "Was anyone concerned that the past 25 debates were too interesting?" he asked. The candidates, he said, "needed something to dislodge them a little bit. If I can be the catalyst, that's fine."

The newsman was not concerned that he had come under fire during the debate: "If you push hard, you're going to get pushed back. That's fair enough."