On Friday, I wrote about attending the annual fundraiser luncheon that benefits the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. This weekend Tribune writer Ryan Gabrielson provided a short question-and-answer piece with the luncheon’s two main honorees, Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil from PBS. Their thoughts are revealing and succinctly sum up their speeches at the Cronkite luncheon. I only wish Ryan could have provided us with more!

WALTER CRONKITE

The luncheon has been so successful over the years because of Cronkite’s personal involvement, which has helped ASU to convince the biggest names in American journalism to make the trip to Phoenix (usually from New York or Washington), accept an award and offer some inspiring thoughts. This year, the stars were Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil of PBS, and both men went to great lengths to emphasize what a special honor they were receiving.

“For people like us in television broadcasting, to be named among the best by Walter Cronkite is as good as it gets,” Lehrer said.

In Cronkite’s absence, ASU President Michael Crow took on a more prominent role in the proceedings. Crow staunchly defended his decision to invest heavily in upgrading the Cronkite School — highlighted by the new 250,000 sq. ft. headquarters. He repeated the statements of American founders who argued democracy can flourish only when the public has been properly informed by a free press committed to pursuit of the truth and to holding government accountable.

“We’re not crazy,” Crow said. “We’re dead serious, we’re dead serious, that the future of a free society, that the future of what we stand for, depends on the education of (journalism students) …”

 (AP photo)

Sen. John McCain went through almost the entire debate Friday without a single mention of his days as a Vietnam POW. In fact, if the debate had ended after 90 minutes as advertised, that issue would have stayed off the stage. So maybe that’s why a Barack Obama-friendly audience in downtown Phoenix gave one of its loudest responses all night — a rolling, unified groan of disgust — when McCain managed to slip in a POW reference about five minutes into overtime.

I had already attended several election events this year around the Valley sponsored by the McCain campaign. So I decided to watch Friday’s debate from the Democratic perspective. The Obama campaign threw a viewing party outside its Arizona headquarters, a converted house that’s for sale at Roosevelt and Sixth streets. More than 130 folding chairs from the United Commercial and Food Workers union were set up in a parking lot behind the house. The campaign projected a live Web video stream from C-SPAN onto a second building facing Roosevelt. Within 30 minutes after the debate started, all of the chairs were full and more Obama fans were standing in a semi-circle behind them.

The crowd was strangely quiet through much of the debate, listening intently as Obama and McCain fired back and forth in a free-wheeling contest of which moderator Jim Lehrer lost nearly all control. Obama’s backers did loosen up with a few rounds of applause and the occasional cheer after Obama delivered some one-liners. But some people also weirdly cheered a couple of times after McCain repeated an Obama comment in order to bring home his own argument.

So, I expected a boisterous pep rally and instead attended a mostly studious affair. Ken Clark, a Democratic activist and former state lawmaker from Phoenix gave a great explanation as to why:

“It was thick, fiberous and chewy,” Clark said. “And I don’t mean that in a bad way. I don’t believe I have ever seen them get so in-depth in past presidential debates. They usually focus more on firing those zingers at each other.”

Clark was right. Obama needed to demonstrate he has command of a lot of different facts and ideas, and that he can think quickly and speak well without a Teleprompter. He succeeded, to the likely horror of many Republicans who have predicting for weeks that Obama would fall on his face in the debates.

Meanwhile, McCain went to Mississippi bristling with examples of where he has been involved in national and foreign affairs, and was determined to cram every one of them into the debate. The Democrats outside Obama’s Arizona headquarters tried to dismiss McCain’s experience as meaningless or too close to President Bush. But I though he did a great job of presenting his case to those middle-of-the-road voters expected to ultimately decide the Nov. 4 outcome.

All of this means I don’t believe there was a clear winner from Friday’s debate. I can’t wait to see and hear what other people think.

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is planning another outdoor viewing party for the vice presidential debate on Thursday. I’ll say one thing, they had better figure out how to improve the video feed. The frequent freezes of the campaign’s Internet connection annoyed many in the audience, and I doubt next week’s crowd will be as patient as they were tonight. Democrats are eager to see Joe Biden tear into Sarah Palin. I wonder if she will manage to disappoint as many critics as Obama did tonight.