TIME: Inside the Debate Strategies

New York – When a race for president gets this close, no detail is too small to leave to chance, TIME’s John Dickerson and Karen Tumulty report. Which is how it happened that a man who once oversaw Middle East peacemaking found himself haggling last week with one of Washington’s most storied power players over the matter of ... colored lights. The proposal: to allow the millions of Americans watching this week’s first presidential debate to see the warning signal whenever George Bush or John Kerry has exceeded his allotted time to answer a question, TIME reports.

‘It’s Like a Game Show’ It was a transparent gambit by the President’s representative, former Secretary of State James Baker, to raise the famously windy challenger’s chances for embarrassment. “Undignified,” sniffed a Kerry strategist. “It’s like a game show.” But Kerry’s negotiator, lawyer Vernon Jordan, gave in—just as he had to Baker’s earlier demand that the lecterns be an unimposing 50 in. tall, and that they be placed fully 10 ft. apart, making it less likely the 5-ft. 11-in. Bush will look miniaturized in comparison with the 6-ft. 4-in. Kerry. When Jordan and Baker finally came to an agreement at New York City’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, putting their heads together over a laptop to approve the official announcement, they headed for the bar, TIME reports.

‘He’s a Sweater’: “He’s a sweater,” chortles a G.O.P. official about Kerry, “and women don’t like sweaters.” That’s why Bush’s team was happy to have the Kerry campaign climb down from its demand that the debate hall be chilled to below 70 degrees. The Jordan-Baker agreement stipulates that the debate commission use “best efforts to maintain an appropriate temperature according to industry standards.” Whatever those are.

Three Debates: What Kerry’s camp got were three debates, rather than the two that Bush’s campaign initially said it wanted. Getting three contests “was much more important to us than any detail of the format,” says Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill. A challenger always wants as many chances to stand on the same stage as the sitting President and take some shots, and Kerry thinks the debates are a place he can shine, TIME reports.

Bush Listening to Audiocassettes of Kerry’s Favorite Attack Lines: Aides have given Bush audiocassettes of Kerry’s favorite attack lines, which the President listens to as he flies between campaign events on Air Force One and sometimes as he works out, TIME reports.

Bush Started Prepping This Summer: With so much on the line, Bush started prepping this summer and has had occasional full-length dress rehearsals, but the pace picked up last weekend at his Crawford, Texas, ranch. New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg, who played Al Gore in the 2000 drill, stood in for Kerry, and admaker Mark McKinnon took the role of the first debate moderator. It all took place in a one-story building known as the Conference Center, where Bush practiced behind a lectern and aides flashed cue cards that told him how much time he had left, just as officials will at the debate. Sessions were scheduled for 9 p.m. E.T., so that the early-to-bed Bush could set his body clock to the precise time of the real thing.

Postdebate Spin: Just as important to their campaigns will be winning the post-debate effort to spin what actually happened. It wasn’t until a day or two after the first debate in 2000 that the analysis turned to Al Gore’s exaggerated claims and his patronizing sighs. But it so neatly fit with the existing narrative about Gore that it became more important than anything else that happened that night—particularly among the vast majority of Americans who had not watched the debate with their own eyes. A study by the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy center found nonviewers’ opinions of Gore eroding as the coverage of his manner grew more negative. So for all the energy the campaigns put into preparing for every eventuality before the debates, the greatest debate may be the one that comes after they’re over, TIME reports.

TIME’s Matthew Cooper, Perry Bacon Jr. and Eric Roston contributed to this report.

Contact: Ty Trippet, 212-522-3640, Jennifer Zawadzinski, 212-522-9046