Bush vs. Gore, part 1

Originally published November 17, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1409

So the debates are over, and now we careen toward the November 7th election with Al Gore and George Bush running neck and neck, if one can believe the polls (trust me, this will have something to do with comics. I know it doesn’t sound promising, but it will.)

Understand, the so-called debates were, in fact, nothing of the sort. A debate is something very specific: A proposition is put forward, debaters argue pros and cons of the issue, and an assessment is made as to who has put forward his or her case more convincingly. What the candidates engaged in weren’t debates. They were press conferences with time constraints, holding nominally to the rules so that the candidates would not have to address each other over the issues. Instead they addressed the moderator (Jim Lehrer with surprisingly dead eyes) and, on one occasion, audience members directly.

That was the greatest mistake in the concept. I don’t need to see how a prospective president is going to talk to the masses. It’s irrelevant. Over the next four years, whoever’s president will be operating purely off a carefully crafted speech whenever he addresses the people anyway. Press conferences likewise can be carefully rehearsed, “no comment” is always an option, and if the president doesn’t want to speak with the press, he doesn’t have to.

The situations that are make-or-break is how the president will handle himself in face-to-face situations with other politicians, be they congressmen whose votes he’s courting, or heads of state with whom he’s trying to be tough or even forestall a war. The one major cross talk that I recall was when Gore turned to Bush and tried to pin him down on the question of affirmative action and quotas. Bush looked flummoxed and then complained that Gore was acting against the rules. That, to me, was telling, because in the real world, there are no carefully constructed rules for a president to follow (well, okay, the Constitution, but other than that…) A president has to know how and when to roll with the punches, and Bush comes across as addled whenever he gets a shot in the face.

And Bush, frankly, creeped me out. That death’s head smile/grimace as he talked about executing three people convicted of a hate crime… brrrrrr. When a questioner called him on it, he claimed that the questioner had misread him. Bull. His voice, his words, his face, his demeanor could not have been more clear. Yes, Gore is also pro death penalty, which I’m not thrilled about, but I’ve no indication that he pursues it with the same missionary zeal and glee that Bush does.

Then again, Gore was driving me nuts. Here’s a tip for any future presidential candidates reading CBG (of which, I’m sure, there are hundreds): There’s nothing more frustrating to a viewer than when you give an answer that has nothing whatsoever to do with the question being asked. Yes, I understand that they spent hundreds of hours preparing. In essence, they rehearsed. But any actor will tell you that the entire purpose of rehearsal is so that—when the curtain rises and the audience is watching you—you’re able to act as if it’s not rehearsed. We all know it’s scripted, but the apparent spontaneity of what we’re seeing is what gives it its charm, is what sells it. What viewers are searching for in the “debates” is a sense of the man, not a sense of the preparation or the rote answers.

Certainly the expectations for the debate were unequal, shaped primarily by sound bites and comedians who have painted Gore as the stiff one and Bush as the dumb one. Since people are reluctant to embrace Gore due to his perceived distance, they were tuning in to see if Bush was really as incoherent and stupid as painted. The answer, of course, is that he wasn’t. Nobody could be that stupid unless he was toting a shotgun and whispering that he was hunting wabbits. So although Gore was “favored,” it was actually Bush who had the advantage because all he had to do was fulfill the most fundamental requirements of acting: Remember his lines and not bump into the furniture. Pro-Gore people came away Pro-Gore, Pro-Bush folks likewise were Pro-Bush. That leaves an estimated 11% of this electorate undecided. My guess is that they were tuning in, not to see if they could or should vote for Gore, but instead to decide whether they could live with Bush. So he “aw-shucksed” his way through, and delivered the obviously scripted bon mots like “mangling a syl-LAH-ble,” and folks who didn’t care about stuff like, y’know, a woman’s right to choose, or the environment, came away saying, “Well, y’know, he’s not so bad.”

Which is why it won’t surprise me if Bush wins, even though I think he’s dead wrong for the job. Bush’s election could, and would, be the logical outcome of the lowering of this country’s expectations. “Why Can’t Johnny Read?” has been replaced by “Why Should Johnny Read When There’s, Like, So Much Cooler Stuff to Do?” or, even better, “Why Is Johnny Reading Harry Potter, It’ll Turn Him Into a Tool of Satan.”

And yet, in the hope that there are some comics fans out there who are still undecided, and are still having trouble finding some way to personally identify with either candidate, I’ve decided to offer this helpful notion.

Yes, there are differences between the candidates, but there are also similarities. Bush’s camp, for instance, is big on talking about how Gore stretches the truth. Yet while computer experts state that Gore really does deserve some credit for the internet in its current form, and that credit shouldn’t be dismissed simply because of a poor choice of words on Gore’s part, no one denies that Bush—while gleefully claiming that all three prisoners convicted of dragging a man to death were being executed—was, in fact, wrong, and that one of the three is instead serving a life sentence. Also, Bush has been said to exaggerate the accomplishments of his career as an aviator.

And I mean… come on, folks. Running for the presidency is, in the final analysis, a year-long job interview. That’s all it is, really. And which of you hasn’t sat in front of a potential boss or someone in personnel and embellished your accomplishments in hopes of getting a gig? I not only expect both candidates to exaggerate because it’s human nature, but I’d be surprised if they didn’t.

What did strike me, though, was how over three debates the candidates molded themselves based upon focus groups and expectations. Gore was ultra-aggressive, openly expressing his annoyance with Bush, and Bush was cranky and on the attack… until the next week when suddenly it was a virtual lovefest… until the following week wherein their pendulum swung the other way because America’s collective teeth had rotted on the sugar-sweetness of the second debate. Basically they twisted themselves, folded and made malleable their forms in order to suit the situation. Both of them had Ivy League educations and fathers who were politicos. Still, Gore seems so much more intelligent, but Bush has the charm.

And that’s when it hit me.

Al Gore is Reed Richards. Mr. Fantastic. The brainy one, the smart guy, the intellectual, the one who you sit and listen to for five minutes, and then your eyes start to glaze over because he can just lose you completely when he delves into all manner of technical stuff. The one who not only is smarter than you, but knows he’s smarter than you, and you know he’s smarter than you, and he knows you know it, and his major problem is acting as if you matter to him because, really, you’re not in his league. Oh, and both Reed and Gore had gruff, rough-and-ready college roommates who wound up with unfortunate skin and you wouldn’t want to piss ’em off (Ben Grimm and Tommy Lee Jones, respectively.)

As for George W. Bush? That’s easy. He’s Plastic Man. The goofy one, the silly one, the fun one, the one who you can sit and knock back beers with and not be worried that he’ll look at you patronizingly if you get totally hammered. People tend to refer to them by a nickname (“Plas” versus “Dubbya.”) Both of them have a somewhat shady background: Plas started out as criminal Eel O’Brian, while Bush’s youth was marked by a checkered, wastrel career, not to mention… well… just what was up with Bush and cocaine, anyway? Although you think that maybe they’re both capable of getting the job done, neither of them inspires any real confidence. Both of them have been known to get a little woozy: Bush when trying to explain his own tax plan, and Plastic Man when seeking out a sidekick (Woozy Winks). Granted, Bush can’t transform himself into, oh, a lamp… but on the other hand, I can easily picture him getting wasted at a party and putting a lampshade on his head, so that’s close enough. And finally, both of them have a brother who a lot of people like better: For George W. Bush, it’s Jeb Bush, and for Eel O’Brian, it’s (and this is a little known fact) late night host Conan O’Brien (who was so mortified by the connection that he changed the spelling of his name.)

I admit, I don’t quite have analogs for the vice presidential candidates yet. Although, to my horror, I actually found Dick Cheney easier to take than Joe Lieberman. I freely admit it had nothing to do with the issues; it’s just that Lieberman sounds like every Hebrew school teacher I ever had, rolled into one. I feel terrible: He’s a fellow Jew and a fellow Democrat. On those reasons alone I should be four-square behind him. But five minutes into the vice-presidential debate, I’d stopped listening to anything he was saying, because I was too busy being wracked with guilt over my not having gone to synagogue since last Simchas Torah.

In any event, there you have it. I mean, yeah, sure, you can vote for Nader if you’re into Elongated Man (they’re both really smart and they’re both named Ralph.) But ultimately, it’s going to come down to the big two: Mr. Fantastic versus Plastic Man. Vote early. Vote often. And don’t just stand by and watch without participating, because when it comes to the battle of the malleable candidates… nobody likes a rubbernecker.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)