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| quote: | April 17, 2008
Categories: Debates
Stephanopoulos defends debate performance: 'We asked tough but appropriate questions'
Despite criticism, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos defended his performance in last night’s Democratic debate, which he co-moderated with Charles Gibson.
“We asked tough but appropriate questions,” Stephanopoulos told me by phone this afternoon.
When I asked whether questions about flag pins or Bosnia are actually relevant to voters, he replied: “Absolutely.”
“The vote for the president,” Stephanopoulos said, “is one of the most personal” decisions that someone makes.
“When people make that choice, they take into account how candidates stand on the issues,” he said, but also are concerned with “experience, character [and] credibility.”
“You can’t find a presidential election where those issues didn’t come into play,” he said.
Stephanopoulos explained that since the candidates are not far apart policy-wise, the “core of the nomination fight” has been about these issues.
“They’ve been fighting it out on this turf,” he said, adding that these are things that “came up between this debate and the last one.”
This morning, websites like The Huffington Post provided multiple attacks on the debate moderators (The Gotcha Debate), and I asked Stephanopoulos for his reaction to one specific piece of criticism — that of Washington Post critic Tom Shales calling the moderator’s performances “shoddy” and “despicable.”
“I think it just comes with the territory,” Stephanopoulos replied, adding, “I think you’re going to find a wide range of opinions.”
“This is an election people are really engaged with,” he said. “They’ve participated. They’ve been watching it. They’re speaking their minds.”
And what about treatment of the candidates?
NBC’s Chuck Todd, for instance, noted that “in the first 40 minutes of the debate, most of the questions were focused on Obama's negatives.”
Did Stephanopoulos feel that the "Saturday Night Live" skit mocking how debate moderators have treated Obama was accurate, and that the Illinois senator has gotten off too easy in the past?
“I’m not going to comment on other peoples' debates,” he said.
Finally, on the repeated shots of Chelsea Clinton on screen — which Stephanopoulos wouldn’t have been responsible for since he was down asking the questions — the moderator said he hadn’t really thought about it. |
http://www.politico.com/blogs/micha..._questions.html
| quote: | George Stephanopoulos Responds To Obama, Defends Handling Of Debate
By Greg Sargent - April 17, 2008, 2:52PM
At some point amid the hailstorm of criticism that greeted ABC's handling of yesterday's Dem debate, moderator George Stephanopoulos received an email -- one of the many, many missives about the debate he's received -- from an Obama adviser.
"Feel like a candidate today?" the adviser asked.
In an interview with me moments ago, Stephanopoulos strongly defended his handling of the debate. He dismissed criticism that it had focused too heavily on "gotcha" questions, arguing that they had gone to the heart of the "electability" that, he said, is forefront in the minds of voters evaluating the two Dems.
"Overall, the questions were tough, fair, relevant, and appropriate," Stephanopoulos argued. And he rejected the claim by many Obama supporters that the debate had been stacked against him, saying Hillary had faced sharp questioning, too.
Today on the campaign trail Obama criticized ABC's handling of the debate, characterizing it as "the roll out of the Republican campaign against me in November."
Asked to respond, Stephanopoulos said that getting criticized "comes with the territory."
"Our job is to ask the questions," he said. "His job is to go out and win votes."
Asked to defend the fact that policy didn't come up for the first 40 or so minutes of the debate, Stephanopoulos said:
"We decided to focus at the top on the issues that had been at the center of the debate since the last debate. Everything we brought up in that front section had not come up since the last debate. And they all focused on the same theme -- which candidate would be a stronger Democratic candidate in Novembber."
"This is the core question for the campaigns, and a lot of Democratic voters right now. That's why we decided to lead with it."
Asked why we should presume that electability, rather than issues, was the dominant concern of many Dems right now, Stephanopoulos argued that it was a frequent topic of discussion on the campaign trail.
"People also take into account...how candidates handle controversy," he said. "That's what campaigns are about, as well."
Asked why the moderators had chosen to spend time on Wright, when Obama has repeatedly responded to questions about him, Stephanopoulos defended it by saying that Wright's most incendiary comments had come to light, and Obama's speech in response, had both come after the previous debate.
When I asked him whether asking about Obama's derelict approach to his flag lapel pin risked making it look like right-wing frames were dictating the line of questioning, Stephanopoulos said:
"Sure, there's a risk." But he added: "If you look at the fall campaign, there are some clear signals from Senator Obama's opponents that all of these issues are going to be put together in a general argument. They all go back to that same theme."
Stephanopoulos rejected the contention of many Obama supporters that the debate, with its focus on Wright and William Ayers -- not to mention that flag-pin -- was unduly stacked against Obama.
"The first series of questions to Senator Clinton were not questions she wanted to answer," he said. "The second series of questions were on credibility and honesty."
Asked whether his background as a political operative had resulted in too much of a focus on electability and on the candidates' handling of media "scandals," Stephanopoulos said:
"You can't help but be shaped by your experience," but he added: "I don't think it's unique to me. This is a conversation that Democrats and some Republicans are having every single day. It's not only, who will be the best president, but who has the best chance of winning."
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http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpo..._stephanopo.php
It bears repeating that his "political consultant" experience came in the Bill Clinton administration.
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