Moderator John Dickerson is the dark horse in the Democratic presidential debate
The veteran political journalist is known for asking disarmingly difficult questions.
Democratic presidential hopefuls shouldn’t underestimate John Dickerson, the moderator of Saturday’s upcoming televised debate.
The veteran political journalist’s knack for asking disarmingly difficult questions was coined “Dickersonian’’ by colleagues back in 2004, after a series of exchanges between Dickerson and President George W. Bush left the president famously tongue-tied.
“In the last campaign, you were asked a question about the biggest mistake you’d made in your life, and you used to like to joke that it was trading Sammy Sosa,’’ said Dickerson, then working for Time. “You’ve looked back before 9/11 for what mistakes might have been made. After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have you learned from it?’’
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“I wish you would have given me this written question ahead of time, so I could plan for it,’’ responded Bush, who was unable to come up with an answer on the spot after several pauses.
“It’s an excellent question that totally stumped me. I guess looking at it practically, my biggest mistake was calling on John,’’ the 43rd president said weeks later.
“[Dickerson] has knocked Bush off script so many times that his colleagues have coined a term for cleverly worded, seemingly harmless, but incisive questions: ‘Dickersonian,’’’ reporter Mike Allen wrote in the Washington Post in 2004. “And yet Dickerson’s disarming charm has preserved his status as one of the few reporters whom Bush and his staff actually like, so he keeps getting called on.’’
CNN media reporter Dylan Byers told Boston.com that while Dickerson is well-known in Washington’s political circles, the host of CBS’s Face the Nation is not a celebrity figure like ABC’s George Stephanopoulos or NBC’s Chuck Todd.
“He sort of flies under the radar a little bit more,’’ Byers said. “He’s much more calm and contained, and it can sort of give you the impression that he’s almost boring — but he’s not boring. He’s very thoughtful and good about how he goes about interviewing his subjects.’’
Maybe it’s genetic. A lifelong Washington D.C.-native, Dickerson is the son of the late Nancy Dickerson, a pioneering journalist who in 1960 was the first female reporter hired by CBS News.
The 47-year-old worked for TIME magazine from 1993 to 2005, including four years as White House correspondent, before moving on to Slate as chief political correspondent. In 2011, Dickerson was named the political director at CBS News and replaced Bob Schieffer in June as the host of the network’s 61-year-old Sunday show (his mother was actually a producer for Face the Nation when it debuted).
Byers said the number-one takeaway from the previous debates on both sides of the aisle is that moderators have to be “really, really well-prepared in their knowledge of the facts’’ and able to follow-up on candidates’ answers. Dickerson’s new role as host of Face the Nation, where he conducts in-depth interviews with candidates, could prove very useful in that aspect.
“Every time you prepare for one of those big presidential entities on a Sunday show,’’ Byers said, “you really have to get into the meat of what their policy positions are, what they’ve said, their track record, so you know where to take that conversation based off their answers.’’
A knack for knocking candidates off-script with his “disarming charm’’ could be particularly useful Saturday night in Des Moines, Iowa. Clinton’s campaign has been repeatedly labeledtooscripted and controlled, while much of Sanders’ strong points in the last debate came from his stump speech.
“You try to hold them to account for what they just said,’’ Dickerson recently told USA Today. “I don’t care if they’re being evasive to me. But if they’re being evasive to the people they’re asking to elect them, you might remind them that (they’re asking) for a lot of power.’’
Byers expects a substantive debate, much like the CNN-hosted event in October, in part because of a more manageable field of candidates.
“For a moderator, the Democratic debates are much safer, more controllable territory simply because you’ve got fewer candidates onstage and you also don’t have the big bombastic, dramatic candidates you have in characters like Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.’’
According to Byers, Dickerson’s style of interviewing is more about building up to and leading into a question, rather than coming right out of the gate with it.
“It’s like boiling a frog,’’ former Slate editor-in-chief David Plotz told The Daily Beast in June. Plotz records the Slate Political Gabfest podcast with Dickerson and New York Times Magazine writer Emily Bazelon.
“He just keeps asking more questions and more questions,’’ Plotz said, “and will Socratically draw out somebody’s positions until you realize, oh wait, this makes no sense or contradicts some ridiculous statement that was said five minutes ago. And then you realize, oh my God! That guy just hanged himself! But not because of John. He’s very gentle.’’
Saturday’s night second Democratic presidential debate starts at 9 pm. ET on CBS.
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