"Pray for Jack Kennedy," I said to Bill Clinton, then the governor of Arkansas and lead "spinner" for the 1988 vice presidential debate in Omaha, Neb. We had been rehearsing that week in Austin, with Rep. Dennis Eckart playing Dan Quayle, me playing moderator Judy Woodruff , and Texas Sen.
Lloyd Bentsen playing himself, the Democratic vice presidential nominee. I asked Eckart/Quayle why he thought he had the experience to be president and he answered by comparing himself to John F. Kennedy.
"Does he really do that?" Bentsen asked. Eckart was well prepared. He really does, we assured him.
"Well, with your permission," the senator responded, if he does that in the debate, I'm going to call him on it. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. And he's no Jack Kennedy.
" "Was he really a friend of yours (ever the fact-checker)," I responded. "B.A.
(his wife) and I went to his wedding." From that moment on, we were praying for Jack Kennedy. The rest is history.
"Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy," is one of the famous lines in the lore of great debates. It didn't win the election for his running mate, Michael Dukakis (vice presidents rarely do), but it clearly won the debate. Indeed, the post-debate polls showed Bentsen handily ahead of both Quayle and his running-mate, George H.
W. Bush. It doesn't always work out the way you plan, of course.
That same year, Bill Clinton and I had rehearsed over and over with Dukakis the answer to the "Willie Horton question" (Horton was a Black convicted m.
