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The presidential debates provide students with a valuable opportunity to learn how the candidates communicate their policy positions and leadership qualities to the American electorate. To best understand the strategies and tactics used in presidential debates, students should analyze and compare the candidates’ approaches to the wide range of domestic and foreign policy problems through their responses to the debate questions. (Though teaching sessions on the debates may be most obvious during the presidential campaigns, teachers can use the debate videos during the three non-presidential campaign years to help students analyze how the elected president and vice president follow through on their campaign promises and how they deal with changing circumstances and unexpected events while in office.)
A major purpose of the presidential debates, from the perspective of the electorate, is to increase the electorates’ understanding of the candidates’ policy positions and to foster transparency, accountability, trust, and participation in the electoral process. However, for the candidates and their political parties, the major purpose of the debate is to motivate the electorate to vote in their favor in the election.
The presidential debates are a combination of a policy forum, an oral examination and a job interview. Therefore, the candidates work toward two goals in their responses to the debate questions: they must give a substantive response and make their response appealing enough to motivate the electorate to vote for their ticket. To increase their vote, the candidates often focus on responses that will convince the uncommitted swing voters and potential non-voters to vote in their favor.
Only 64 percent of the voting-age citizens cast ballots in the 2004 election, which was the largest turnout since 1992 when 68 percent of the voting-age electorate voted resulting in a win for William Clinton and Al Gore over the incumbent George H. W. Bush and Dan Quayle. The 2008 vote, as the first election without an incumbent since Eisenhower’s 1952 win over Adlai Stevenson, is expected to draw a large turnout with a higher than usual proportion of new and uncommitted voters.
Have your students view the first presidential debate, the vice presidential debate, the second presidential debate, or the final presidential debate in pieces or in their entirety.
For warm up ask your students to work in small groups to answer the general discussion questions.
Next pass out the Structure of the Debates handout, ask students to highlight what is surprising about the history, structure, and ground rules of the debates. Does this change their view of the debates? Have the students pair up with new partners and talk about what surprised them.
Lastly have the students look at the Tactics handout. Did they notice any of these tactics while watching the debate? Possibly watch some sections of the debate again and ask the class as a whole to call out tactics while they are being used.
More discussion questions:
1. How can you distinguish facts from opinions in the candidates’ responses to debate questions?
2. What types of debate tactics have each of the presidential and vice presidential candidates used in their debates?
3. Most candidates have issues or agendas that will be unpleasant for certain segments of the electorate – how does each of the candidates use generalities and vagueness instead of specifics and clarity in response to some of their questions?
4. What are the differences between the standard presidential debate format and the town hall format? Which of the formats produces the most substantive information? How do the two formats appeal to different groups of voters?
5. How do candidates appeal to their special interest groups in a debate that is viewed by the entire electorate?
6. Presidential debates are often viewed as a competitive and argumentative, however preparing for the debates requires a great amount of cooperative effort. What are some of the ways that the candidates must cooperate to prepare for a debate?
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