Make-or-break performance

Thursday, Aug. 3, 2006 | 7:57 a.m.

Debates have often sealed a candidate's fate. Usually this is true for presidential races, where TV viewership is more substantial.

Nevada observers, though, do remember 1994, when Gov. Bob Miller debated Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones in the Democratic primary. The air conditioning was out in the Reno studio, a la the old Boston Garden, and Jones wilted under the heat, her makeup a mess.

Gary Gray, who did the advance work for Miller, said he kept the candidate in an air-conditioned room until right before the debate and gave him plenty of water, and no makeup. Jones, meanwhile, came right off the street and into the studio, he said.

On the makeup front, Richard Nixon made the opposite mistake in 1960 during his debate with John F. Kennedy, who looked cool and in command. Nixon wore no makeup, and as sweat gathered on his upper lip, it cast a creepy pallor on him.

Nixon's eventual vice president, Gerald Ford, made a huge error when he claimed in a 1976 debate with Jimmy Carter that "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe," which made him look naive or just plain delusional. Ford eventually lost to Carter.

Sometimes the subtlest signs can foil a candidate. Or more accurately, provide an easy anecdote for the media to latch onto.

In 1992, for instance, President George H.W. Bush kept checking his watch during the first-ever town-hall style debate. It seemed as if he couldn't be bothered. The press loved this and used it as a sign of how out of touch Bush was. He lost to Bill Clinton.