NYT: January 10, 2008
Clinton vs. Lazio in 2000, a Portent of Debates to Come
By Joyce Purnick
If only Barack Obama knew his history, New Hampshire might have been different. And we are not talking ancient Rome here. Nope, just a little New York history that could not have been more relevant to the results in Tuesday’s primary. Whatever else happened in New Hampshire to move Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton ahead of Senator Obama, we know the women’s thing happened. Women didn’t like seeing Mrs. Clinton getting beat up by the guys.
Well, no kidding.
New Hampshire 2008 was a rerun. It happened before — guys dissing the gal and voters, especially female voters, taking active umbrage. Eight years ago, Mrs. Clinton was running for the Senate from New York, remember? And she ran against a Republican congressman from Long Island named Rick A. Lazio. The first lady and the congressman held their first debate in September 2000, and what a debate it was. Raucous was the generally accepted adjective. NBC’s Tim Russert moderated as if he were prosecutor. Mr. Lazio debated as if he were judge and jury. And Mrs. Clinton won. Nobody who watched, from voters across New York to reporters like me, could doubt that it was the defining moment of the Clinton-Lazio campaign....
The piling on during that debate eight years ago began when Mr. Russert, using his trademark technique of airing videotapes and quotations in pursuit of gotchas, ran a tape of Mrs. Clinton’s 1998 appearance on the “Today” show just after the Lewinsky scandal broke, when Mrs. Clinton defended her husband and denied allegations that he had had an affair with Monica S. Lewinsky. After showing the tape, Mr. Russert asked Mrs. Clinton if she regretted ‘’misleading the American people'’ and if she would ‘’now apologize for branding people as part of a vast right-wing conspiracy.'’...There she was, the wronged wife, asked by the big bad male moderator about her husband’s betrayal. She looked down at her hands, she struggled for the right words, kept repeating “you know, you know,’’ then said, “Well, you know, Tim, that was a very, a very painful time for me, for my family and for our country.’’
There was no tearing up, but she was this close and the public was watching it happen in real time — just as so many watched Mrs. Clinton’s voice crack and her eyes well in New Hampshire on Monday when she was answering a voter’s question about the rigors of campaigning....
In 2000, after Mr. Russert asked his visually aided question, it was Mr. Lazio’s turn. Breaking with debate protocol he left his podium, walked over to Mrs. Clinton and with a piece of paper in his hand — a pledge that she would never again spend soft money — demanded that she sign it....At the Democratic candidates’ debate in New Hampshire on Saturday, Mr. Obama did not wave any pieces of paper. But was there a female voter in New Hampshire who did not hear him say, “You’re likable enough, Hillary,’’ after Mrs. Clinton was asked to explain why voters found her less likable than some of her rivals? ('’Well, that hurts my feelings, but I’ll try to go on,'’ she answered.) Mr. Obama surely did not mean to sound patronizing, but tell that to female viewers....
It would seem that enough women in New Hampshire did not like what they saw going on, figured Mrs. Clinton didn’t either — she did have that emotional moment, after all — and they fought back. At the ballot box....
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/clinton-vs-lazio-in-2000-a-portent-of-debates-to-come/
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