What I Learned From Debate Prep Walter F. Mondale and Ronald Reagan debating in October 1984 in Louisville, Ky. WHEN Walter F. Mondale, the Democratic nominee for president in 1984, asked me to help him prepare for his debates with President Ronald Reagan by playing the Reagan role, I accepted with enthusiasm. Fritz Mondale and I had met almost 30 years before, when he was a promising student at the University of Minnesota Law School and I was a promising assistant professor. We had stayed in touch as he went on to serve as senator and vice president, and I was glad to help him, believing he was well qualified - by experience, character, temperament and intelligence - to be president. Though he was the candidate, he enjoyed calling me Mr. President, for I had gone on to become president of Columbia. I barely hesitated on the question of whether there was any tension between my position as Columbia's president and a partisan political role. Dwight D. Eisenhower had run for president when he was still nominally Columbia's president, while another of the university's presidents, Nicholas Murray Butler, had accepted the vice-presidential nomination on the 1912 Republican ticket after the original nominee died. And while a university president must be sure he doesn't seem to be committing his institution to a political party, that doesn't mean he must be a political eunuch himself. While I "played" Reagan, I was not asked to be a mimic. I could sound like Kermit the Frog for all that mattered. My job was to make Reagan's arguments and mount his attacks. To prepare, I read all of Reagan's major speeches and policy statements and watched videos of his previous debates. Before each of the two debates we met every day, from Monday to Friday, at the Mondale home in Washington, and debated. We stood at lecterns a few feet apart, with another Mondale friend questioning us in the format the actual debate would follow. A video camera fixed on Fritz recorded the entire session. We would then perform a post-mortem, assessing his answers and how he looked when he was speaking and listening. Fritz's staff had a special assignment for me. They were not happy with one bit of business he was doing on the campaign trail, but they couldn't talk him out of it. They were sure he would do it during our debates and asked me to see what I could do to get him to stop. Sure enough, waxing eloquent about Medicare, he said something like this: "My father was a minister, not a wealthy man, and when he died, all he left my mother, apart from our home, was a small insurance policy. When she became ill and exhausted the proceeds of that policy, if it hadn't been for Medicare, she would have been forced to go on welfare. My turn: "That was a very moving story, but I like to think that Mrs. Mondale's son would have helped out." Fritz turned to me and shouted, "You son of a bitch!" He came to enjoy my response, telling others about it, but I don't think he used that story again. The debate format suited Fritz. He was warm, quick-witted, knowledgeable and, given the opportunity, very funny. On the campaign trail he was at his best in the question period. A presidential campaign is always an arduous marathon, but 1984 differed from today in two important respects that made carving out a large block of time for debate preparation a sensible tactical choice. First, both Mr. Mondale and President Reagan had opted for public funding, and so they were spared the money-raising frenzy afflicting this year's campaign. And, second, the on-all-the-time news cycle was still many years away. We worked in a very homey atmosphere. Joan, Fritz's wife, passed to and from the kitchen. On one occasion I overheard their son tell her, "I'm so proud of him." In the judgment of most of the press, Fritz won the first debate handily, a judgment with which I naturally concurred. The second was generally regarded as a tie. The outcomes confirmed two theories of mine based on my viewing of all the available presidential debate videos. First, a candidate challenging an incumbent president has the advantage. The president of the United States is an awesome figure. Merely to share the platform with him on equal terms is to gain in stature: a good performance will be judged even better. Second, the order in which the candidates answer the first question matters when the format has them answering the same questions. The one who goes second will have time to think about his answer, a luxury his adversary will not have. Not only does that give him a chance to do well on that question; it also helps him to settle in comfortably for the evening. One other observation about this particular art form: each of the participants has a major objective and a minor one, in addition, of course, to appearing presidential. The major one is to get his messages across even if the questions don't ask for them. The minor one is to avoid seeming unresponsive. That is why you will see the debaters answer some of the questions quickly, leaving time for what the candidate wants to talk about. There's no way to know who will win the first Obama-Romney debate, on Wednesday. Though I am unhappy at the prospect, experience tells me it could well be Mr. Romney. Of course, as Fritz and I learned, the winner of the first debate may not even come close to winning in November. Michael I. Sovern is president emeritus of Columbia University and a professor at Columbia Law School.