BuzzFlood Spoils Debate

By T. Henry Camp | Friday, June 11, 2004

The stage is set. Seven podiums and a large roundtable prominently stand guard on the Lebanon Opera House's stage. A "Dartmouth College's Student Assembly" banner adorns the backdrop. Eight-hundred and fifty seats await the arrival of as many undergraduates clad in Big Green t-shirts. The College's pep band and a capella groups will greet the crowd with College anthems. Two donkeys outside on the Lebanon Green will only add to the carnival atmosphere.

— Rockefeller head Linda Fowler —

The date is January 25th—just two days before the nation's first primary—and the mood across the state is electric. Seven Democratic presidential candidates and three major networks have expressed interest in the event, which has been billed as a "Healing America" roundtable moderated by the American Enterprise Institute's Norm Ornstein and including former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop and Martin Luther King III as panelists.

The scene is compelling, thrilling even; it represents the best efforts of several College students on a mission to show the world the strength of the Dartmouth spirit. But there's a catch: This presidential debate never happened. But the fascinating and shadowy particulars behind its conception, evolution, and ultimate failure provide a glimpse into a strange world where political machines, personal agendas, and bureaucratic regimens collide.

Two Competitors, One Prize

Since last year, two Dartmouth entities had been trying to arrange a debate. Eighteen months ago, the Rockefeller Center reserved Moore theatre and Spaulding auditorium to be used for a potential candidate discussion on the weekend before the New Hampshire primary.

"Dartmouth's experience with large-scale candidate events is mixed," said Director of the Rockefeller Center and Government Professor Linda Fowler. She explained, "Before my time, plans in 1992 fell through at the last minute, and in 1996, when I first became director, something similar happened, although the planning had not progressed very far." Indeed, the eventual College-sanctioned discussion on Women's Issues only drew three candidates: Lieberman, Dean, and Kucinich. Fowler and Rocky's media partner—Lifetime Television—worked up to the last minute just to solidify these; Dean only committed the day before.

But while Rocky was searching for partners during the fall, others were hatching a similar plot. In July, several students organizing under the auspices of the BuzzFlood organization, started pursuing a student-run candidate debate for Dartmouth. Brent Reidy '05 recalled, "I was glad we were going to work on something that could tangibly change the lives of so many students."

— BuzzFlood ingenue Kabir Sehgal —

After conferring with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop throughout the summer, BuzzFlood ultimately settled on a healthcare roundtable disucussion as the format for their event. They named it "Healing America." Kabir Sehgal '05, who described his role as "chief negotiator, or project manager," said, "We wanted to create a tradition, a legacy—'Healing America' would be synonymous with Dartmouth."

Concurrently, Rocky began negotiating with the Lifetime network for a debate focusing on women's issues (later, it became the "Every Woman Counts" debate). The groups approached their elusive ends from slightly different perspectives. Rocky felt strongly that securing a network sponsor was the first priority. Then, under their more linear approach, the candidates would follow—and the network partner would share some of the organizational burden. "Networks want a local network partner for logistical support, and candidates want the exposure from local coverage during the primary," Fowler said.

BuzzFlood, on the other hand, went straight for the candidates and the networks in an exhausting—at times confusing—all-out blitz campaign throughout the fall. "I made hundreds of calls a week" Sehgal said of what he called "an arduous process." Competing for the same space, audience, and time, these two forces were ultimately destined to collide.

In October, the inevitable occurred. Sehgal needed invitations to candidates from the President's office, but, in accordance with an internal policy, the President needed to have Rocky onboard. Sehgal, with no other choice, initiated talks with Rocky Director Linda Fowler.

"Kabir needed me for two reasons: Rocky had a hold on Moore, and Dartmouth has a long-standing policy that political events should be coordinated with Rocky," Fowler said. She further noted, "He and BuzzFlood did not have the ability to do press, security, and other logistics."

Reidy, on behalf of BuzzFlood, put it somewhat differently in a tersely worded message to Rocky's Jeremy Eggleton: "We think it's pretty simple: we'll deliver the 9 candidates, the media, Dr. Koop. All you have to come up with (at this stage) is a venue and date." BuzzFlood's self-proclaimed "forte" was "getting the press, candidates, [and] Dr. Koop," while Rocky's "forte" was "doing all the stuff that's necessary to pull off a debate." The grunt work, in other words.

Fowler was receptive to the initial talks, but the relationship was never on firm ground. "Since I have done this before, I was skeptical about what Kabir's actions could accomplish, but supportive because of the chance that he could pull it off," she said.

The Relationship Sours

Both groups indicated that achieving acceptances from candidates and media outlets was the most difficult and crucial aspect. It was a "sort of dance" explained Fowler, "It's all quite Byzantine. That's Kabir's cup of tea—doing all that negotiating and talking on his cell-phone all day." She also warned, "[The candidates] always sound more receptive than they actually are."

Quickly, problems in the partnership surfaced. According to Fowler, "[Sehgal] would never share with me what he had. The story kept changing about who he had, and whether he had a media partner." Government Professor and Assistant to the President Sheila Culbert concurred: "It seems Kabir didn't always follow the directions [Fowler] gave."

Kabir insisted that he had achieved confirmation from five to seven candidates at any given time. But when pressed for contact information, Sehgal and Reidy were elusive with Rocky. In an e-mail to Eggleton, Reidy wrote:

I understand this must sound frustrating, 'Why is BuzzFlood keeping us in the dark?' It's not so much the dark, but we're trying to deal with the media in the most careful of ways—have one person contact them for now. Most of our conversations have been personal in nature, so it's like turning the name of a friend over, when the friend wants to deal with us right now.

In recent discussions, Sehgal cited as proof of his ability to bring in a national network an e-mail from Ryan Marty of FoxNews that said, "We are interested in your proposal." While more concrete evidence was is short supply, Sehgal claims most of the negotiations were done by telephone.

The internal political finagling may have grated the Rockefeller Center, but an invitation to Lyndon LaRouche—the infamous anti-Semitic candidate—was the last straw. While Fowler and Reidy give differing stories of how his name slipped onto the list forwarded to the President's office, one thing was clear to Fowler: LaRouche could not attend, period.

Fowler pulled the plug. "By mid-December, we ran out of time, and I did what I felt was the best decision," she explained, "I was looking for a horse to ride and chose the one with the best chance of making it across the finish line." So Rocky moved forward with its Lifetime partner.

The Plot Thickens

At this point, the story took several bizarre twists. "I made it very plain that if [Kabir] did proceed he would have no cooperation from the center—and that it might be rough-sledding with the potential for taking everyone down," Fowler recalled. Despite her cautionary language, BuzzFlood redoubled its efforts after the partnership with Rocky ended.

Perhaps the oddest event occurred in the early January lull, when Sehgal brought Prof. Fowler a gift—a peace offering she thought. According to her, the two planned to go ahead with the "Healing America" roundtable later in the spring. Ideally, the event would be held annually and, in the future, candidates would ideally attend.

But shortly thereafter, BuzzFlood enlisted the aid of Student Assembly president Janos Marton '04 and vice-president Noah Riner '06. They wanted to do the "Healing America" roundtable before the primary, and they needed logistical support.

"When Dartmouth College's Student Assembly swept in under the leadership of Janos and Noah, it was like fresh air," explained Sehgal, who continued his role as rainmaker. Riner, meanwhile, scrambled to work out the local logistics to create the hyped event they imagined.

Working with Buzz Boswell of the Lebanon Opera House, Riner dealt with the space, tables, chairs, sound, and the other picayune tasks necessary to pull it off. Mick Pryor '04 had even secured a donkey to greet the audience. All the while, Fowler proceeded with Rocky's event under the impression that they would work together on a springtime gathering.

As the two groups hurtled towards the finish line—seemingly unaware of each other—both overheated. Uncertainty lurked around every corner, despite the intensive planning.

For Fowler and the Rockefeller Center, this uncertainty took the form of fickle candidates: They could only wait for the political machines to contact Lifetime. For Sehgal and his crew, uncertainty took the form of frantic attempts to confirm and reconfirm candidate acceptances and local planning. On January 22nd, at the St. Anselm's College candidates' debate, Dartmouth College's Student Assembly disseminated a press release as a final push to encourage candidates to attend "Healing America." The release claimed all seven candidates had accepted.

But as the days ticked down, disaster struck Student Assembly and the BuzzFlood. According to Sehgal, the Kerry campaign pulled out at the last minute. With the front-runner gone, the delicate balance crumbled, other candidates canceled, and the organizers of the "Healing America" roundtable made the decision to abort. Thus, BuzzFlood's plans evaporated overnight, and Rocky's weakly attended debate aired as scheduled.

Lingering Questions

Why did Kerry pull out? Better yet, how had the BuzzFlood pulled off the impossible and corralled all the candidates? Or had they?

At its heart, the brewing controversy revolves around these all-encompassing questions. Sehgal and company suggest that Dartmouth tried to sabotage the event: Fowler and Rocky felt snubbed, and so they undermined the Student Assembly. "We were doing Fowler's job better than she was," is the popular refrain. However, no hard evidence exists. Kabir says that he heard from someone in Senator Max Cleland's office who heard from someone in Kerry's campaign who heard from someone at Dartmouth.

Student Assembly and BuzzFlood felt so strongly about these rumors that Janos Marton called Prof. Culbert the Friday before the Sunday debate. Culbert, for her part, said that, at the time, "Nobody knew what [Janos was] talking about." Still, she called Rocky to ask around. This was the first time since December that anyone in Rocky admits to hearing about SA's event. BuzzFlood countered that Rocky and other Administration officials must have known about their independent attempts to keep the roundtable alive.

At some point in the waning hours, Lifetime heard about the SA—but they claim they attached little significance to the information. Gary Morgenstein, who helped from their end, vehemently denied undercutting SA: "It wasn't us, that's for sure." Conversations with Lifetime yielded one incongruous element. When asked how they discovered the SA event, Morgenstein explained that someone in the office had heard it from none other than Linda Fowler. Yet Professor Fowler denied any extensive knowledge of the SA debate until the Review contacted her—almost two weeks after the fact.

Ignoring all this for the moment, there remains another, more sobering question: Would the Student Assembly event have failed regardless? Here again, evidence is scant. Mr. Sehgal provides after-the-fact e-mails from spokesmen at six campaigns saying they would have attended had the event not been canceled. Yet he only possessed one e-mail from before the event, in which a spokesperson for the Lieberman campaign explicitly said the Senator would attend. As of this printing, Sehgal claimed that the documents are in New York. No one from the seven campaigns could confirm why any candidates' plans had changed, or even whether the candidates had originally been scheduled to attend.

Ultimately, this tale will probably never be resolved to anyone's satisfaction. On one side, Dartmouth's administrators point to angry students trying to make excuses for their event's failure. "I'm a bit surprised that Kabir would be upset," said Prof. Culbert, "[Fowler] bent over backwards for him." Further, she denied that SA's success would have triggered any repercussions: "I don't think anyone would have minded if they got all the candidates there—I mean, wow."

On the other side, BuzzFlood took the same, high-road tack: All the students said that, after their event fell through, they urged the candidates to attend the women's issues forum. Yet, still, they expressed profound disappointment that Dartmouth was compelled to interfere with their event.

In the end, we are left at an impasse: Just like the debates themselves, the planning of such events raises many questions—but most are left unanswered.

BuzzFlood Spoils Debate

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