2004 Presidential Debates

The 2004 presidential debates are misnamed: each candidate "answers" a question in a two-minute soundbite; this is not "debating" an issue, as any high school debate team member can attest. It is a made-for-TV battle of spin and the candidate wins who has the best marketing people on staff (who develop memorable "bites" on each issue).

The "non-partisan" Commission on Presidential Debates was established by the two parties, according to the Boston Globe: "[T]hen-Republican Party chair Frank Fahrenkopf and then-Democratic Party chair Paul Kirk incorporated the commission, and they have co-chaired the organization ever since."

In 1960 (Kennedy-Nixon), the average audience for the four debates was 63.1 million. In 1984 - the last year that the League of Women Voters sponsored a debate and an election that was a landslide for Reagan - the TV audience averaged 66.2 million for each of the two debates.

Audience numbers have declined since the Commissionn took over, even though the number of people eligible to vote continues to climb. In 1988, the average was 59.7 million. By 2000, in a highly contested election, the average audience for the three debates was 40.6 million.

There are at least two presidential debates that are credited with affecting the outcome of an election: the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858 and the Kennedy-Nixon debate of 1960.

The Licoln-Douglas debates took the form of a debate. Each man spoke for 1.5 hours; the opening speaker had a half-hour to rebut speaker number two. There were seven (7!) debates throughout the state of Illinois. 21 hours. These debates are credited with positioning Lincoln to be president.

The Kennedy-Nixon debates (which I studied in Journalism School) were the first to be televised. The sponsor was the networks: ABC, CBS, NBC. TV audiences, when polled afterwards, gave the nod to Kennedy; radio audiences, Nixon. It was the first instance of "appearance matters" and Nixon's body language (5 o'clock shadow and shifty eyes) did him him.

Schedule
Presidential debates:
Th 30 Sept, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL
Fr 8 Oct, Washington University, St. Louis
We, 13 Oct, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ

Vice presidential debate:
Tu, 5 Oct, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH