Remembering superagent Robert Barnett's debate superpower
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Robert Barnett is interviewed in his Washington law office in 2004. Photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times
After my remembrance in Axios PM about Washington superagent Robert Barnett, who died Thursday at 79, several of you texted me with memories of a decades-long Barnett sideline — debate coach, negotiator and role-player for Democratic presidential and vice-presidential candidates.
The big picture: Paul Begala recalls how Barnett secured "home stool advantage" for Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton for his 1992 debate at the University of Richmond with President George H.W. Bush (who checked his watch) and Ross Perot:
"At Bob's suggestion, we borrowed the stools we'd rehearsed on at the Williamsburg Inn and brought them to the studio. Somehow Bob smooth-talked the crew into subbing out the stools so that Gov. Clinton would have a home-stool advantage" — perfect for his height.
- "Bob played George H.W. Bush in our prep [at William & Mary]... even wore a preppy wristband on his watch," Begala added. "It was my son John's first road trip. And guess where he went to college 18 years later? Life is wonderful."
- Gail Shea Nardi — my mentor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and later a force in Virginia Democratic politics — was backstage and recalled that Begala and James Carville "nearly exploded when GHWB looked at his watch! I sat next to a cool senator named Joe Biden. We kidded each other about being Irish."
What they're saying: Brian Fallon, a senior adviser on last year's Harris for President campaign, told me he called Barnett last year "and he told me about the pitcher's mound they had constructed to mitigate the height difference for [Michael] Dukakis against 41 in 1988. ... It was a ramp built under the carpet so it wasn't discernible to the naked eye on TV."
- "On Labor Day 2024," Fallon added, "while President Biden and VP Harris were onstage addressing a union hall in Pittsburgh, I was in a nearby supply closet with a yellow legal pad, taking notes from Bob about what demands we should be making on the set design. My very next call was to Rick Klein," Washington bureau chief of ABC News, host of the debate with President Trump.
Behind the scenes: It turns out Barnett had used the pitcher's mound ploy before. Mandy Grunwald tells me that at the 1984 vice-presidential debate in Philly between her candidate, Geraldine Ferraro, and George H.W. Bush, "we had them build a gradual slope up to her podium and carpet it, so she wouldn't look like a little kid having to step up on a stool. Bush was about a foot taller."
- "I was a kid in my twenties and Bob was really respectful," Grunwald added. "At our first big debate prep in '92, James [Carville] spent our whole lunch break peppering Bob with questions about the speaking circuit."
- "Debate visual for Bob: He always had a big binder with tabs for every topic and the exact language Bush or whoever would use by topic."
Despite his moonlighting, Barnett was bipartisan in his day job. "We are heartbroken," longtime Republican insider Mary Matalin texted me. "Will light so many candles."
Go deeper: Robert Barnett: Literary agent to Obamas, Bushes, Clintons was a "doorman to Washington"
