The Globe and Mail

By LESLIE MILLIN

That man over there whose assistants are patting the right shade of powder on his forehead, and the other chap whose assistants are talking quietly to him so he’ll be in the right frame of mind when the cameras roll, and the third man whose people worry a bit that he won’t take advice—they’re not actors.
       Those men are politicians.
       They’re going to chase Bonanza and Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In right off the air, and gobble up two hours of the primest of prime television time to give Canada a really big show—the biggest television show the country has ever seen.
       If any one of them bombs, he’ll be doing it in front of the biggest audience ever to watch a single Canadian television show. Estimates of that audience run anywhere from a very conservative five million to a probably optimistic 12 million or more.
       It’s enough to take the breath away; and there are those working behind the scenes for the four political parties involved who lie awake at night, staring at the ceiling and breaking into little round globes of sweat just worrying about that show: The Great Debate.
       The Great Debate, the confrontation among Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Conservative leader Robert Stanfield, New Democratic Party leader T.C. Douglas, and Ralliement des Creditistes leader Real Caouette, is a command performance.
       The Canadian public, collective appetite whetted by two political leadership conventions that put enormous new vigor into Canadian politics, commanded the performance. And when election day comes around on June 25, 16 days after the debate, just how each man performed will be engraved on the memories of an awful lot of voters.

Stanfield's enormous gamble

       “The gamble,” as a Stanfield worker said over lunch the other day, “is enormous.”
       A few minutes before 9 p.m. on June 9, the doors of the Confederation Room in the West Block of the Parliament Buildings will be locked. They won’t be opened again until the show ends at 11 p.m.
       Locked into the room will be the nine men—four politicians, three reporters and two moderators—to appear on camera during the debate, and the necessary production personnel. None of the four politicians will be able to see himself or his opponents on a monitor. None of his advisors will be able to get to him, to powder his face or whisper advice, or tell him how he’s doing.
       A room with monitors for party representatives will be provided outside, but all they will be able to do is watch and worry.
       “We won’t be able to do anything if, say, they start giving Tommy a hard time with the cameras,” Clifford Scotton, the NDP leader’s adviser says. “I suppose the only thing to do would be to break the damned doors down if it got really bad.”
       He, like the advisers to the other protagonists, is putting his faith in the promise by the networks that there will be no funny business with the cameras, no shots of politicans scratching, or blowing their noses, or wiping their brows because of heat at a time when it might seem that the brow wiping was inspired by worry over an opponent’s point.
       CBC and CTV, who are co-producing the broadcast and who virtually bludgeoned the parties into agreeing to the debate at a time when it seemed there might not be one, are unlikely to do anything that might lead to charges of unfairness.

Debate structure under fire

       In fact, many of the opinions proffered that the debate is too rigidly structured to be lively have their roots in the precautions built into the format to guarantee fairness.
       There is a tendency to look back in longing at the simple, two-man Kennedy-Nixon debates, which seemed such spontaneous, vigorous affairs; but few realize that those debates were also very rigidly structured, and for the same reason: fairness.
       In fact, a lot of the precautions built into the format for the June 9 debate were copied directly from the U.S. pattern.
       Robert Barclay, for example, the filmmaker who is advising Mr. Stanfield on television, has doubts about the spontaneity of a debate involving nine men on camera. He would have preferred a two-man debate in the Kennedy-Nixon style.
       But the debate broadcast on NBC, for example, involved seven men on camera (two politicians, four reporters and a moderator), as well as two floor directors for the politicians. There won’t be floor directors in the June 9 debate.
       In the search for spontaneity with equality in The Great Debate, it was suggested that the precise allocation of time to reply to questions or comment on replies would be too rigid. Again, this was something copied (right down to the matter of warning lights to tell speakers how much time remains) from the U.S. debates.
       The format for the June 9 debate was loosened a bit when the Liberals proposed, and the other parties agreed, that the three reporters will not have to submit their questions for party scrutiny an hour in advance.
       The networks agreed, so that a reporter will be able to ask a question that occurs to him at the time, arising perhaps from some unforseen statement by one of the party leaders.
       It wasn’t all that much of a concession to make, because the networks had never suggested that the parties could eliminate any questions they didn’t like; they could just object, and the networks would consider the objections.
       In any case, the negotiations are over, and now all the party workers can do is make sure the protagonists are fit for the fray.
       Just as an early bare-knuckle boxer prepared for a prize fight by soaking his hands in brine, just as a modern prize fighter gets all kinds of psychological help from his manager and trainer before he climbs through the ropes to murder the bum, the men to whom the debate is most serious—Trudeau, Stanfield and Douglas—will have to be prepared.
       All three will probably take a day off to rest and study before the debate, and check over the three minute statements of position with which they will begin.
       Clifford Scotton says he thinks it unlikely Mr. Douglas will take any notes into the debate with him. “He has the most fantastic ability to pull statistics out of his head at will, and refer you to documents. He’ll quote something and tell me it’s on a certain page of Hansard, and I look it up and there it is.”
       Scotton suggests it’s more likely that Douglas will rely on his many years of parlimentary cut and thrust to see him through.
       As far as getting advice on things like make-up is concerned, Scotton says: “Tommy has many, many friends from the television world who can advise him. We all give him advice. I suppose I give him as much as anyone.
       Scotton doesn't say whether anything will be done to make Douglas look taller, but he expresses concern over problems like lighting, and the effects of two hours under the hot lights needed for color television cameras.

The shine on a high forehead

       Inevitably a man’s forehead starts to perspire, you see, and Douglas has a high forehead and receding hairline that make for a very bright highlight on the dome of the forehead. It will be toned down with powder before the debate, but what will Douglas do if perspiration washes the powder away, leaving the NDP leader with a great shiny highlight for part of the show?
      Scotton won’t say, but Charles Templeton of CTV, who will be one of the moderators, says provision will be made so that the protagonists can get their hands on some facial tissue if they want it, to mop up some of the perspiration.
       Don Macpherson of CTV, the producer of the debate, points out that the Confederation Room is air conditioned, and that special Philips color cameras will be used, which require less light than the standard RCA color cameras.
       Robert Barclay, the Conservative television expert, says the little things like make-up and lighting aren’t half as important as getting your man psychologically ready.
       But the little things still have to be looked after.
       Stanfield, for example, not only has a high forehead (and therefore is subject to some of the same problems as Douglas), he also has great overhanging eyebrows which make it essential that his face be lit from below as well as in the conventional way, from above.
       Otherwise, it looks as if he has a couple of dark caverns in his face instead of eyes.
       “With a thing like that, all I can do is call it to Don Macpherson’s attention that it’s important to make sure that everyone’s eyes can be seen; and after that it’s up to him,” Barclay says.

Proper lighting for an uncle

       Attempts have been made, he says, to persuade Stanfield to wear a lighter color of suit, because the dark shades he prefers just turn into black on monochrome television sets, combining with his dark ties and dark brows to yield the impression of an itinerant executioner.
       With the proper lighting, the right make-up and a lighter suit, he may come across as a friendly, craggy uncle figure.
       Barclay says that psychologically he has been preparing Stanfield for weeks, and he considers this to be more important than technical tricks. “For one thing, he’s now accustomed to television studios, where he wasn’t before.”
       He also points out that Stanfield “tends to think while he’s answering questions, talking along while he works out his thinking. It’s lousy television.” Trudeau, he points out, tends instead to have done his thinking in advance, so that his answers are quick and crackly.
       Part of the preparation, Barclay says, has been getting Stanfield to the point where he has thought out the answers to many of the questions he may be asked, and can give crisper responses.
       He says the Conservative leader is ready to go, and, like Scotton and many another fight contenter’s manager before him, says his man will murder the bum.
       The problem of the Prime Minister is something else again. He has advisers, plenty of them. But unlike the other protagonists, he has two extra things going for him: familiarity with television, because he had experience in the medium before going to Ottawa; and an easy way in front of the television camera that gives him what amounts to a natural television personality.
       Ian Howard, the public relations man for the Liberals, says he feels Trudeau “needs very little advice. He’s very emphatic towards the medium; he has a natural feeling for it. He won’t undergo any special conditioning process.”
       Howard says Trudeau has discussed campaign issues with the campaign chairman (Senator John Nichol) and himself, “and we’ve reached positions on them.”
       Obviously, as prime minister and high-riding television personality, Trudeau is going into the debate with a large advantage over his less prestigious, or less facile, opponents. When it comes to deciding what strategy to follow during the debate, or how to present his profile to the camera, Trudeau obviously will do his own thinking.
       On such points, Howard says, “I don't know if he’d take that kind of instruction. I doubt if he would.”
       After a little more than half of The Great Debate has gone by, Real Caouette will enter, make his three-minute opening statement, and then join in the debate on the same basis as the others.
       Caouette’s preparation and strategy are hard to discover. His inclusion in the debate came as a surprise to many, and although the Rouyn-Noranda car salesman gave a verbal acceptance of the invitation quickly enough, his party gave no formal written acceptance until it was prodded by the networks.
       During the negotiations with the networks on format, his representative sat fairly quietly and left without making any comment at the end of the meeting.
       But his participation in the debate is not to be dismissed lightly. He is known on the CBC’s French network as an astute speaker, quick to make the most of television.

Going for the jugular vein