The Harvard Primary

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS -- Chris Matthews alternatively calls her "Michelle Pfeiffer" and "a real ball buster." She is Dawn Birch, dressed in a black suit with white gloves, and draped in high-tech communications equipment, stimulating 800 people at Harvard to show enthusiasm for Matthews and his weekly guests, all Democratic presidential candidates. The white gloves assure that the audience will know when to stand, shriek, and applaud.

Welcome to the Harvard Primary. And these are the people who wonder how Californians elected an action hero.

Perhaps commensurate with their sense of entitlement, Harvard students expect this close-up and personal treatment by candidates who may become president of the United States. It's another question whether Matthews' weekly "Hardball" series at Harvard is preparation for public service or definitive evidence that politics fundamentally is live entertainment.

Only a few elite contributors and the virtually white voters of Iowa and New Hampshire will get this much attention. Carefully observed, these weekly engagements do provide a valuable sense of the candidates under fire as well as a window into the show that politics has become.

To warm up the crowd, for example, Matthews yells out questions like "How many of you think Cheney's an evil son of a bitch?" (Laughter and applause.) "How many of you would support Bill Clinton?" (Thunderous huzzahs.). "Oh yeah? Well, how old is the next Monica Lewinsky?" (Stunned silence, hissing.)

Though they have the chance, the audience has learned not to ask Matthews questions, like "Did Karl Rove call you recently about White House leaks and have you reported what he said?" (Impolite.)

As to the candidates themselves, if they don't have ready answers to questions like "What's your favorite movie?" they will plunge into a void of tongue-tied unentertaining contenders. Two weeks ago, Sen. John Edwards stumbled through 60 seconds of embarrassed confusion before he remembered "the one about the guy who gets the death penalty" ("Shawshank Redemption"). Presumably more prepared, this week's candidate, Sen. John Kerry, quickly answered "Animal House" to approving cheers.

"Animal House?" Such is the stuff of which campaigns are made, even at Harvard. But then, too, 123 Harvard students have been hospitalized for alcohol poisoning this year, double the 2001 figure, so Animal House may resonate.

Nevertheless, this is important stuff. The Democratic candidates are contributing to the public's growing doubt about George Bush (who, by the way, is invited here too). How the Democrats handle their own differences will affect party unity and morale in 2004. How they respond to the agenda of the peace and global justice movements, versus the corporate pleas of the Democratic Leadership Council, will affect history as well. Can the vast constituency of Democrats, independents and Greens form an unorganized united front to dump Bush, or will internal differences on the Center-Left permit Karl Rove to prevail for another four years? This is a very big deal.

"Hardball" is not an infomercial. Beneath the rock-star treatment of the candidates, there is substance, derived from Matthews' many years on Capitol Hill. He hammers at both Edwards and Kerry for their shifting views on Iraq (both deny they've changed) and tries to draw them into personal attacks on President Bush or other candidates (which they gamely avoid).

For 10 minutes that feels like 10 hours, Sen. Edwards stubbornly "stands behind" his vote last year authorizing war in Iraq. As the oxygen vanishes from the room, he still claims that Saddam was a "direct threat" to the United States. It's a legitimate point for a hawk, but more treacherous for a reborn dove. Of course, Edwards could announce with righteous anger that "we were misled," but that might reinforce the charge that he is inexperienced in foreign policy. Better to be stubbornly wrong.