Cheney, Lieberman debate sticks to pattern

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, OCT. 7. With the debate between the Vice-Presidential candidates now out of the way, the focus is slowly shifting not just to what the main contenders are saying now on the campaign trail in key States but in how they are going to face off again for the second time in North Carolina next week.

By many accounts, the exchange between Mr. Joseph Lieberman and Mr. Richard Cheney in Kentucky on Thursday night was far more civil, professional and was without the empty rhetoric that the encounter between the Vice-President, Mr. Albert Gore, and the Texas Governor, Mr. George W. Bush witnessed in Boston on Tuesday.

Both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Lieberman did not let down their guard but stayed on the offensive without relying on one- liners and pot shots. The exchange may not have been lively - few expected this - but in many ways was academic and professorial as they talked on a range of issues including tax cuts, abortion, education and the readiness of the American military machine. And as expected, both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Lieberman only endorsed what their main candidates have been saying in the last several months.

Mr. Gore may have come out on top in the raft of opinion polls on the debate itself but many are questioning the manner in which the Vice-President took on the questions and his general demeanour during the course of the 90 minutes. Mr. Bush came to Boston debate as the underdog and is perceived to have passed the test in more than an adequate fashion. This, however, does not mean an overall endorsement of the Texas Governor or the kind of policies he has been talking about.

If the first encounters at the Presidential and Vice- Presidential debates are anything to go by, the focus will remain for the most part on domestic issues with Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore having to stick with their broad outlines on medicare, prescription drugs, social security, tax cuts, education and on issues such as abortion. There will be a lot of other equally important issues that will crop up as well, such as racial profiling and hate crimes.

One of the sensitive issues that the Clinton administration has been trying to deal with has been racial profiling, or the accusation that on a routine basis, police officers stop non- white drivers just because of the colour of their skin. At the Vice-Presidential debate, Mr. Lieberman was asked about racial profiling.

The Senator mentioned the case of a White House aide who was stopped and surrounded by police in Maryland ``for no other cause that anyone can determine than the colour of his skin''. In the view of Mr. Lieberman, racial profiling is to be denounced and promised White House action to end it. The Montgomery county police have been quick to issue a denial. ``The facts don't fit in...This had nothing to do with racial profiling'', the county police has said going on to make the point that the driver was stopped because the vehicle matched the description of a stolen car; and the whole incident was over in about eight minutes when it was realised that the police had stopped the wrong vehicle. The Lieberman camp stands by its version.

The expectation in next week's debate between Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush is that the candidates will come out of their numbers game and get into more broad based themes of policy that will be put in place upon victory on November 7. Both the major party candidates are paying a lot of attention to key battleground States in the South and the Midwest in the hope of coming with the required electoral college votes on election day.

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Section  : International
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