California's Great Debate

The debate among would-be governors of California was wonderful.

Candidates were allowed to jump all over each other, to poke, prod, mock and challenge. So what if it seemed at times like a new Hollywood production called "Arnold and Arianna," or perhaps "Terminator 4"?

On Wednesday night, the voters learned something. And kept watching.

The contrast with the usual presidential campaign debate was monumental. Debates have been strangled by too many rules, too big a role for media types, too many handlers carefully negotiating formats in advance to reduce the risks to their clients. And what are the risks the handlers are trying to avoid? Precisely those revealing moments during which voters might see something they had not seen before.

The California debate was an antidote to the fundamentally dishonest way that most campaigns are run these days. In television and radio ads -- and especially in those vicious direct-mail pieces -- candidates rip each other to shreds without a second thought. It's meanness with virtually no accountability.

While the real campaign goes on, debates take place in a rarified alternative universe. They are cast as stately affairs in which candidates dutifully and soberly answer questions posed by media pooh-bahs. Most of the time, the competitors repeat themes from their stump speeches and unleash a few one-liners carefully scripted in advance. If the going ever gets tough, a beleaguered candidate can turn to the moderator and seek refuge behind those debate rules.

There was no hiding in the California demolition derby. It should be seen as the definitive case for debate deregulation. The candidates knifed each other right there for everyone to see. Stan Statham, the moderator, frequently lost control of the spectacle -- and that was fantastic. "This is not 'Comedy Central,' I swear," he said at one point. In fact, it was Democracy 101.

Have you ever heard a debate in which the candidates actually made the workers' compensation issue moderately interesting? And, yes, I loved it when Arianna Huffington and Arnold Schwarzenegger baited each other.

"Let me finish," Arianna said in an exchange destined to be replayed over and over. "This is completely impolite. This is the way you treat women, we know that." That's when Arnold cast her for a role in "Terminator 4."

Ah, you might object, I just picked up on a substance-free sound-bite exchange between two people whose main purpose in life is to entertain. But there is nothing wrong with entertainment in politics. In the late 19th century, when voter turnout was high, elections were embraced as a form of popular entertainment.

As for the issue of Arnold's relationship with women, the polls show it's a subject that female voters care about. Isn't it better for an opponent to place this issue on the table openly than to have it put about in a whispering campaign -- or raised by one of us reporters who would try to get at it obliquely, our real thoughts hidden behind some veil of high-mindedness? And if voters think Arianna went too far, they can vote for Arnold.

But the debate also revealed a lot about the non-entertainers on stage. State Sen. Tom McClintock, the staunch conservative, wants to move California forward -- to the 1950s. It was fun to hear him praise that great liberal warhorse, former governor Pat Brown, first elected in 1958, as embodying a conservative bygone age.

McClintock looked tough and principled, even if you disagreed with his principles. And having a real conservative on stage made all the more obvious Arnold's bobbing and weaving. Arnold was trying simultaneously to win over the conservative Republican base and to reassure moderates. It's a much harder act than anything he pulled off in the movies.

Green candidate Peter Camejo offered voters some lessons on the state tax system's bias in favor of the wealthy. As for Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, he looked, depending on your point of view, (1) calm, reasonable and experienced, (2) unprepared for the brawl or (3) comatose. Bustamante and Camejo were, however, eloquent in explaining that California's economy is hugely dependent on the illegal immigrants politicians love to trash.

Personally, I think this recall should be voted down on principle. Incumbent Gray Davis is just one of many governors facing big budget holes. But this debate was almost worth the price of the recall. It was an honest political moment. How often can you put those last three words together in the same sentence?