Even before the second debate between President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry came to a close, the political cycle started spinning.
Campaign staffers in navy suits, stressed segment producers and high-profile television anchors began swarming into the fast-paced, frenzied place known as “spin alley,” the spot set aside for the spin doctors to try to tell the media how they should interpret the evening’s debate — and to claim victory for their respective candidates.
Dozens of campaign workers held giant sticks decorated with the name of their spinner and followed that person as he or she worked the room — the Recreational Gymnasium in the Athletic Complex, which was transformed into a bustling media filing center housing more than 550 journalists from across the globe.
Throughout the debate, operatives from both parties hustled handouts on every issue, slamming the other candidates rhetoric and responses and hyping up the drama for the impending mania of spin alley.
A sense of urgency surrounded this debate, and the atmosphere of spin alley reflected that notion, with the spinners jumping at every opportunity to offer their partisan views to the microphones of willing reporters.
The talkers ranged from the traditional — former Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., and Bush campaign senior adviser Karen Hughes — to the more unconventional — actor and Bush advocate Ron Silver and correspondent Ed Helms from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart on Comedy Central, who, while lying on the floor, screamed to the masses, “Everybody’s lying! Wake up, people!”
While the debate was only 90 minutes long, the antics in spin alley had been playing out for the cameras all day and lasted long into the night.
The debate was still going on when Silver and New York Gov. George Pataki headed downstairs from their bleacher seats to offer their takes.
“The president did a really good job of convincing people we need him for four more years,” Pataki said. “The American people can see that the president cares deeply about the American people.”
Missouri gubernatorial candidate Claire McCaskill, however, was quick to offer a different view.
“The president doesn’t see that the people are hurting economically,” McCaskill told local reporters. “He sees things through tinted glasses. He’s just going to give us four more years of the same.”
She also slipped in a little campaigning of her own.
“George Bush came all the way to St. Louis to debate, but Matt Blunt won’t — that really says a lot,” she said of her opponent.
The biggest crowd flocked around Sean Hannity of FOX News, who drew reporters — and dozens of smitten young Republican women screaming “we love you, Sean!” — to his booth, where he was hosting a live special edition broadcast of the Hannity and Colmes show.
“He is just so hot … and smart,” a University student said before launching into a group chant of “four more years.”
During an interview with Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, Hannity quipped, “I’m very sorry, Terry, the president wiped the floor with John Kerry tonight, so you’re having a tough night.”
McAuliffe fired back, “George Bush did not look like a president of the United States of America,” adding that Bush turned off undecided voters.
Not far away from Hannity’s booth, Kerry spinner and former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart was telling reporters that Bush “doesn’t face up to the nation’s problems and is just going to give us four more years of the same thing. This is a decisive win for Kerry.”
Lockhart’s responses were soon drowned out by a pack of Republicans loudly chanting “four more years” and asserting Bush as the winner.
Hughes declared that the president “dominated the debate tonight. I think he effectively pointed out that Senator Kerry’s thinking on the war on terror is limited and dangerous.”
While Lockhart’s and Hughes’ spins on the debate couldn’t have been more opposite, both Republican and Democratic spin doctors share a common goal: analyzing and reiterating their candidate’s positions and debunking their opponents’ messages.
And, of course, declaring their candidate the winner.