Mondale survives at Dartmouth, but the pack is still baying
The debate itself lasted three hours. The debate over who won still rages.
No sooner had the eight candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination stopped vying for the attention of TV Talk Show Host Phil Donahue, waving their arms like excited schoolchildren, than their camp followers began vying for the attention of the press to declare victory.
"Spectacular!" crowed James Johnson, Walter Mondale's acting campaign chairman, relieved that the front runner had not fallen. "It makes Gary Hart the emerging dark-horse candidate," declared his deputy campaign manager, David Landau. The debate transformed Jesse Jackson from "black candidate" to "national candidate," claimed Jackson's national-issues coordinator, Frank Watkins. John Glenn's organization quickly turned the adulatory reactions of six New Hampshire voters into a radio ad. A little too quickly: the voters' reactions had been taped before the debate. The ad had to be pulled off the air and redone.
Actually, there was no clear winner or loser—unless, as some leading Democrats lamented, it was President Reagan. The debate, sponsored by the House Democratic Caucus, was held on the snow-covered New Hampshire campus of Dartmouth College. For the first 1 Vi hours, all the candidates responded to the evenhanded questioning of ABC Newsman Ted Koppel (see PRESS) with measured campaign statements. In the second 1½ hours, most were goaded into sharper exchanges by Donahue, who hopped about with his microphone soliciting questions from the audience and throwing in some zingers of his own.
For the candidates, many of whom have been laboring in relative obscurity, the debate was an opportunity to define their appeals before a public-television audience of perhaps 10 million. It also gave the pack a chance to test Front Runner Mondale. The most dramatic challenge came at the 21/2-hour mark, when Glenn took to the attack. As Mondale explained how he was going to cut the federal budget deficit, Glenn interjected that Mondale was spouting "the same vague gobbledygook of nothing." Waving his fist, Glenn protested, "There wasn't a single figure attached to that..."
"Hold it," interrupted Mondale.
Glenn charged ahead: "Let me finish. I'm disgusted and tired of all the vague promises." Now Mondale got worked up. "Point of personal privilege!" he shouted. But Glenn would not yield: he blamed the Carter Administration for its "21% inter est rates" and declared, "That's why we lost the White House." Shot back Mondale: "There's just been about a six-minute speech, all of it baloney."
Mondale had resisted a wide-open debate precisely because he worried about such a confrontation. But most observers agreed that he did not suffer any serious wounds. Said fellow Candidate George McGovern: "It's clear that Mondale gained more than anyone else from the debate by not being hurt during it. As the front runner going in, all he had to do was not make any mistakes, and he didn't."