Did you see and listen to the first two of the three scheduled 90-minute presidential debates? I did, as I’ve done for the each of the debates since 1960, but never ever with an audience as huge as the one held at Ole Miss.
There are four things to know about debating:
First, let me warn you away from telling others that the first Presidential Debates were the seven debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas the fall of 1858. Their famous exchanges were parts of a U.S. senatorial campaign in Illinois. That Lincoln and Douglas ran against each other for President in 1860 contributes to the misunderstanding about their debating that year. Fact: Lincoln and Douglas never debated each other in a presidential campaign. In fact, Lincoln made no speeches during the campaign of 1860, as was the custom, while Douglas campaigned all over the nation, North and South. Only one other prior presidential contest had featured such in-person campaigning.
Second, let me encourage you to tell others that the first radio debate (televised, I think, to a few places) between primary candidates for the presidency took place in 1948. More than 40 million Americans listened in, according to Time magazine. Fact: The first debate between presidential candidates was the primary one aired in 1948.
Third, let me encourage you also to tell others that the famous 1960 debates between Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy were, indeed, the first and the first to be televise
d, debates between the nominees, respectively, of the Republican and Democratic Parties. These debates were also broadcast by radio, as a result of which some now discredited research found that radio listeners reported that an ill and wan Nixon had won, whereas TV viewers found the tanned and handsome Kennedy had won. The perception persists, nevertheless, that the medium is the message, and so the background, [staging, coloring, placement of the media moderator giving each Qs in turn is now a part of the “debate about the debates” that takes place every four years] that is so despite the fact that since 1987 a Commission on Presidential Debates exists to organize the debates. Never mind the fact that the debates are not debates. They are glorified joint press conferences run by a third party. Fact: The first debates between the two major party presidential candidates were the 1960 televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon.Fourth, let me warn you away from using the media’s criteria for judging the debates. That standard is whether a given candidate lives up to the media’s expectations of him or her, as two front page articles on the September 23 issue of the New York Times make clear. That criterion is a false one for two reasons:
First, it is not based on the threefold standards of public address taught in Western society for more than 2,000 years:
a. Content about economic and national security issues should be internally consistent, structured and worded to enable listeners to understand it at least;
b. Vocal or physical delivery should be animated but consistent with content.
c. Moral standards should be embodied in the content of utterance to ensure that mere effectiveness does not trump ethicality.
The second reason the media’s expectations should not be used to judge a debater’s success is that it permits the least experienced debate to “win” merely by showing up and holding her own with her opponent. That why Gov. Sarah Palin “won” her Oct. VP debate with the much more experienced Senator Joe Biden.
Fact: The media’s expectation criterion is not the one to use to judge the debaters or the outcome of a debate.
Whether you were among the tens of millions who viewed the first two debates, I hope you’ll plan to view – and judge – the final one Oct. 15.
