Welcome to Forum 360.

I'm Mark Welfley.

Thank you for joining us for our global outlook with a local view.

Presidential politics and debates.

They have been an integral part of many campaigns and grown increasingly more popular.

Often they are candidate’s sole opportunity to speak to the largest number of voters in one place and time.

The first Biden-Trump debate in 2020, held in Cleveland, Ohio, drew an estimated 73 million viewers.

Presidential debates have taken on a personality all of their own, featuring sound bites like Ronald Reagan's.

“There you go again.” In his 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter or vice president hopeful Lloyd Bensten's quip ,“Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.” In a 1980 debate with Dan Quayle.

Are presidential debates nothing more than entertainment and theatrics?

How do you decide who wins a debate?

How do you handicap a debate?

To answer these questions and more, I'm joined by Jim Robenalt presidential researcher, attorney, lecturer, and author of four nonfiction books.

Welcome, Jim.

- Hi, Mark.

Nice to see you.

- Thank you.

Basic question, Why do candidates even debate?

What's the purpose of a debate to begin with?

- You know, as we were talking before we came on here, for the longest time, candidates did not debate in American history.

The first real debate as we know it was the Kennedy- Nixon debate in 1960.

And then there was a gap from 1960 until 1976 for the next debate.

and then it began to become more regular.

But it is seen today as such a regular thing that if somebody does not debate, they're heavily penalized by it.

And we kind of saw that this summer when there was some question about whether Trump would debate or not.

and they've decided to have this debate, but they debate because they want to reach, as you said, in the opening, the most people and they want to assure people about their good qualities and reassure them that they're not as bad as their opponents says they are.

- So getting to this whole scorecard of debates, before we go into kind of the psychology of them, how do the media, how do people, handicap a debate, determine a winner or loser?

Does it seem all personal, like there could be as many winners as there are people?

Cause everyone has their own opinion?

Or is there kind of a standard by which debates are judged?

- Yeah so you want to look at it from the debate after what people say about the debate?

or do you want to look at beforehand?

- Afterwards.

- Yeah.

So, this started sometime in the ‘80s where there was this consistent effort to spin.

Called the “Spin Room”.

Where the candidate would, get its team, the candidate's team to be ready to go right away after the debate with the spin on that debate.

And they would say, “my person won”, and they would amplify gaffes of the other side.

They would amplify their own punchy lines that they did.

And so people began to, there's been studies about this.

People began to understand presidential debates, not by just what they watched.

And then turning off the TV.

They listened to the “Spin Room” and today it's all Twitter.

So you're having people real time as it's going on doing this process now.

So in the past it was just after the debate.

Now it's real time with people on Twitter, and people really begin to understand and absorb what just happened by watching the news and watching their Twitter feeds afterwards.

- So what do viewers generally watch when they watch a debate?

Like what, what, what are they looking for?

Are looking for those gaffes or are they looking for clarity?

Are they looking for uncertainty in their candidate or the other candidate?

what are they really watching for, goes through their head?

- You know, it's interesting.

This has been studied a lot too.

Substance is not particularly what they're looking for.

They're looking for image.

They're looking for how they present.

They're looking for, you know, punchy lines that will then become you know, lines from the debate.

Like, as you said with Reagan, “There you go again.” That became a big part of that campaign.

So viewers are really looking in the first part for the punch-counterpunch.

They like that part of it.

That's why Trump has been such as you know, drawn these big audiences because he does a lot of punching and the other side does counterpunching and he does counterpunching.

They look for that.

But then they also are looking for what's the appearance of my candidate?

Does my candidate appear to be in charge of the facts, in command of the facts.

And do they seem to have the leadership qualities and composure?

And one thing they really don't like up until Trump's time was, they don't like nastiness.

They don't like the personal attacks.

And today, in the last few debates, we've seen a lot of that.

So it's hard to tell.

We're going to be a few years out to see how that all really played out.

- Yeah, sure.

Pre-debate, debate, post-debate.

At the end of the day, do these so-called debates propel a candidate to victory at the polls?

- A few of them do, but very few of them.

For the most part, they provide some context to the campaign, but, when people look at debates, they look at the results that happen.

And for example, Hillary Clinton won her debates in 2016.

Nobody would be able to tell you that today, given that she lost and Trump won, but he lost badly in those debates, and it still didn't make a difference.

at the end of the day, there were other things that made the difference, but it's still important.

So there have been a few debates where, it really has made a difference in the result.

But for the most part, it's not generally seen as being the make or break.

I happen to think this year will be make or break.

The one we're going to see with Harris and Trump.

- So pick a few debates in history and and tell me why they were so significant.

- Yeah.

So as I said, the first one, John F Kennedy- Richard Nixon 1960.

Important for lots of reasons, because the last debate that people considered a presidential debate was Lincoln-Douglas in 1858, before the Civil War, we’re 100 years later.

And that was just a Senate debate two years before.

So it wasn't really a presidential debate, but it was seen as a stand in.

So we get to 1960, and for the first time, debates are going to be televised, and all the people in the newspaper business said “now image is going to replace the written word for the first time.” So really important, image over written word.

But secondly, it was also the beginning of what will become the regular debates.

Not right away, but it will all come that way.

And thirdly, it really did show in that instance, how appearance can really affect what happened.

Kennedy and Nixon weren't that far apart in what their substance was.

In fact, they agreed with each other a lot during that debate.

But Nixon had lost weight because he had been campaigning too hard.

He didn't put on the right makeup, if any.

Kennedy, at the last minute, one of his guys insisted that he put on makeup, even though he had a nice tan, he wanted to get the pores out because those lights back them were really hot.

so that really kind of established where we were.

And then I think, you know, it was 16 years later for the next debate was 1976 was, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.

And Ford was laboring under Watergate.

He had pardoned Nixon.

but there was a gaffe in that one.

That is one of the most, well known gaffes of presidential debates that made a difference.

He said that there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and people were scratching their heads, including the questioner, who said, “Wait a minute, can I get this right, president?” He gave him another chance and he doubled down.

So that made a big difference.

Ford had a chance to win that election.

but that particular gaffe was huge and obviously set up, you know, Carter's presidency.

- Give us a good backstory with, the makeup.

- Yeah.

- Of Nixon - In fact, there's an even better backstory to it.

Kennedy is being prepared by his people.

And back then, he just had a bunch of index cards with facts and all that stuff, and he did come in with a great tan.

He like to always have a tan.

and he gets to the debate, and the guy who's taking care of him, sees that he hasn't put pancake makeup on.

And so he he worked at that particular TV station, Chicago, ran around the corner to get some pancake makeup, comes in, puts it on.

Kennedy doesn't like it, but he does.

It makes him look great.

but as Kennedy is coming back, he says, “I have to go to the bathroom.” and this guy said, “I hadn't planned on this.

I had my checklist.” Takes him to the bathroom.

As Kennedy is walking back, he hears the guy, This is live TV.

say, you know, “ten, nine.

eight.” Kennedy walks in.

The whole place is frozen cause we don't have a candidate.

He sits down across this leg and just looks down.

And it undoes Richard Nixon.

You know, he just to see the calm of this coming in at literally the last second.

So, that was an interesting backstory to that particular debate.

- Can you share with me any of the backstory of another debate, another candidate or two?

- Yeah, I think the one that's the most significant to me, and it's one of the more significant debates, is in 2000 when Al Gore and George W Bush.

So remember that in 2000, Clinton had been president for eight years, and even though he had the scandals in his second term, he was still a very popular person.

Along comes Al Gore, and he is way ahead and he has everything going for him.

He'd been the vice president for eight years.

He knew a lot more than George W Bush, who was seen as a lightweight, in all of these things, and his team.

To their credit, Bush's team knew that.

They started preparing him in April.

You know, six months before the debates, secretly.

So nobody knew he was doing this much preparation.

And they sat down and, you know, educated him on federal stuff.

He was a state governor from Texas.

And, they brought him up to speed over the course of that whole debate, preparation and so by the time he gets to that debate preparation, Al Gore has great disdain for him.

And he comes in very amiable but also pretty prepared.

And so, that debate is significant cause Gore gets really upset.

He starts huffing and puffing.

He sighs audibly.

The mic is on.

They're going back and forth about this and George W Bush then, you know, really pulls into the lead at that point because, Gore is seen as disdainful, arrogant, you know, an automaton.

He talks about a lockbox for Medicare and so forth.

but the backstory was they didn't come out of nowhere.

The Bush people knew what they had to do with him, and they really rigorously prepared him for six months for this.

So it's pretty interesting story.

- Yeah, a quick comment, if you would.

I noticed in the debate rules, in some debates, you're not allowed to bring notes like a piece of paper or a notepad, sharpened pencil.

And that's it.

Why can't you bring notes?

Or why is that such a controversial topic?

- Because they don't want the candidate to be relying on, scripted stuff and notes that they have.

Just like there's been this controversy over time, where some people have wondered whether the candidate had an earpiece in and that their group was telling them what the answer ought to be.

That was true in the, it might have been the first or second Gore-Bush debate.

Where Bush's, jacket had a pleat in it that looked like there was a backpack on him.

And there was a lot of debate about whether he had been told what to do.

What people want is these candidates raw.

They can usually have pads in front of them where they can, you know, write notes down.

But they want to see them, truly debate from their own skills and not from what somebody has, you know, a text that somebody has given them.

So but it's interesting, these whole questions of whether or not somebody, I think, even with Hillary is a question whether she had a, bug in her ear that she was, you know, hearing people say what to say.

And of course, none of that's true.

None of that happened.

but later they speculated that Bush might have had, this was 2004, This might have been, after 911, when the question of whether he had had a bulletproof jacket on and he didn't have that either.

But people want the unscripted they want the raw candidates to see how they do.

- If you're just joining us, thank you, for being with us.

We are talking about handicapping a presidential debate, and my guest is Jim Robenalt.

And Jim is a presidential researcher, author, attorney, lecturer.

And, we've been talking about, famous debates and backstories.

And we'll continue on here.

Occasionally I hear, one of the candidate’s sides say, “well, the moderator is swaying.

Is predisposed to favor one candidate over the other.” Do you think that's true?

Do you think a moderator can bring more favor or more, more positive energy to one candidate than the other?

- You know, there's been a lot written about that.

Jim Lehrer, who's one of the guys who went to all these things, said that he didn't believe it was his job to fact check a candidate, that the candidates should fact check each other.

and he should just stay out of it, ask the questions, be a total moderator, and facilitate a discussion.

And I think others and as we've gone deeper into especially the Trump era and the Trump debates, there's been more of a thinking that maybe there should be some fact checking of outrageous lies.

And so they begin to step into that territory.

But it's difficult because at the end of the day, people don't want to hear from the moderator.

They want them to be totally neutral.

So one of the ways they kind of tried to get around that was to occasionally have a town hall, debate where, you know, they're sitting on stage and they're getting up and walking around.

But it's questions coming from undecided voters, that they get their chance to say what they're going to say to kind of keep the moderators totally out of it.

- It's interesting, - But I think for the most part, the moderators have done a pretty good job of staying out of it.

With one exception, Where I thought, a question was so out of bounds that the candidates should have said, “I'm not going to answer that.” And “go on to your next question.” It was in the debate with Dukakis in 19, looking at my notes here, 1988.

So Dukakis is known for being against the death penalty.

And there was this whole campaign that he let out this Willie Horton, and so, Bernard Shaw, who I kind of liked from CNN, asked him the question, “if your wife, Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you then be for the death penalty?” That was such an outrageous question, where a moderator clearly is doing to me, the wrong thing that Dukakis should have said, “I'm not going to answer that.

You know, that's out of bounds.

So go on to your next question.” Instead, he said, “no, I'd still be against the death penalty.

And we've got other ways to do it.” And that really hurt Dukakis cause he was seen as being, like, dispassionate and not really concerned about his wife and all the rest of that stuff.

But that was way out of bounds.

And that's an example where a moderator stuck his nose in it.

- Yeah, he wasn't going to win either way.

Answering that question was he?

- Yeah, no he wasn't.

But, you know, it echoed to me what, Kamala Harris did when she was asked about the remarks about her race.

And she just essentially said “same old story, Next question.” I don't think that's a bad way to go.

I think most people accepted that that was the right answer.

- People talk about the value of a vice president in office.

and yet, there always seems to be vice presidential debates.

And I don't know how much people really weigh those.

I'm hearing not a lot.

- Yes.

- and I guess you know, the slippery slope, How far can you go?

Do you want the perspective?

You know, first wives to to interview.

And who else takes the debate stage after that?

- Right.

- So, like, do we need vice presidential debates?

What do they add?

Is there something missing on the debate stage that we're not accounting for here in presidential politics that might be helpful?

- You know, again, studies have looked at this.

They have zero impact on the result.

But I think they’re really important for one reason, which is, this is a person who's going to become president if the candidate dies or has to leave office, and the American public should at least have a look-see at who that person is to make sure they're not, you know, way out of bounds or unacceptable.

you know, you think about some of the more controversial candidates, Sarah Palin, for example, and she hurt that ticket overall But her debate performance didn't make her better or worse.

She had already kind of hurt the ticket, with John McCain.

So I think it's a look-see, but it doesn't really affect anything.

- Alright, I have to ask you about the worst debate ever.

Can you share with me what you think is like the worst debate?

- Yeah.

Well, I think the worst debate is clearly, the 2020 debate.

Biden, Trump here in Cleveland.

and this is one where they left the mics on and Trump kept interrupting.

By the way, this is the one where he had tested positive for Covid and didn't tell anybody, beforehand.

And it was at the Cleveland Clinic, if you remember that particular debate.

And it was a mess.

Trump interrupted Like every minute.

he had done that with Hillary in the past, and that was a pretty messy one, too.

But this one led to Biden finally saying, “would you shut up, man?” You know, and it just was like, this is this really, Both of them were demeaned by the whole thing.

and it was purposeful.

So that by the time you get to the third debate, when Biden's, you know, like ten points ahead, they, they muted the mics.

So that didn't happen again.

And that's what's going to happen with Harris-Trump too.

They're going to mute the mics that we don't have this constant interruption because it really does not just undoes the flow, but it just seems childish.

You know, the really childish stuff.

And that to me was the worst debate.

- Yeah.

- We've gone to famous sound bites, famous theatrics, flies on faces and, - The hair, yeah.

- and, you know, famous quips.

Can you take me through a couple three that you remember?

- Yeah.

- Over the years and if they had any impact at all?

Or were they just something people remember?

- Yeah.

Well, the most quip friendly, one is Carter Reagan in 1980, and Jimmy Carter wanted to dodge debating because he knew that Ronald Reagan was an actor, that he came off well on television.

Carter was the incumbent.

He tried to stay above it, but he started to fall behind and deeply fall behind.

because there was another John Anderson, an independent, had debated Reagan, and Carter stayed away from that.

And he really hurt himself doing that.

So he finally agreed, like seven days before the election, to do this.

And the biggest problem that you know, Reagan had was, was he a serious candidate, or was he just an actor?

and so forth.

And what about his age?

His age became a bigger deal with Mondale.

But on that one, Carter makes this long and passion, speech about how he will take away Medicare and Social Security.

And he gave that quip, “there you go again.” It just undid him, and it made Carter look small.

and then that was, you know, a landslide victory.

And that same one has a quip that at the end of it, Reagan says, “are you better off now than you were four years ago?” And that's become kind of a standard.

We even saw it in the last debate.

You know, this is a standard thing for candidates to use.

But he came up with that quip in that debate and really dusted Carter.

I mean, Carter barely won 4 or 5 states even though he was an incumbent.

so that's probably the most important, the second most important debate that had a quip in it, was four years later with Reagan-Mondale.

Now Reagan’s 73, and he's already showing signs of what will become his dementia actually.

The first debate was terrible.

It was almost as bad as Joe Biden's debate against Trump.

People walked away from there saying, and Mondale said, you know, “he's he's lost it.” That was the first debate.

He came back in the second debate and the issue of his age came up, and he had this line, “I will not make age an issue in this campaign.

I'm not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.” And to Mondale's credit, he laughed and he knew it was a good one.

But he also knew he had just lost that debate.

So he made a comeback.

And by the way, These are debates that Reagan didn't need to do.

He was ahead.

He was a popular president.

And, he did it anyway.

But that particular quip, really sealed the deal for him about his age.

- Talk to me about length.

Like, how long should debates be?

Two hours, three hours, nine hours?

- Yeah.

- Like, how long before the [unintelligible] lands on the viewers, and they can make a decision or get the information that they were hoping for, after the debate is over?

- Yeah.

Well, it's interesting because, the Kennedy-Nixon debate, each side was given ten minutes to give an opening statement.

That's a long opening statement.

And then four minutes at the end.

They were only asked, like ten questions in between, that's one way to do the format.

The other is just to get right into the questioning and go back and forth.

I don't think people can take more than 90 minutes.

I would prefer to see just an hour, and I like what they did in 1992 at George H.W.

Bush, Clinton and Ross Perot, where, they had these debates in series October third, eleven, fifteen and nineteen.

kind of like a TV mini series where people were tuning in every week to see the next installment.

That to me was ideal because you're not stuck with, you know, long, long, long debates.

You can keep them short, but you keep giving people more information as you go along and people get interested in it.

So, it's usually 90 minutes, but an hour to me would be better.

- Yeah.

In the last 30 seconds that we have I’m just curious about preparing for a debate.

It seems each candidate prepares differently.

is there a good recipe for how best to prepare for a good debate?

- Yeah, it's become very formulaic.

They get them in a room, they get somebody to play the other person.

That happens every time somebody studies up the other candidate to see what they're going to say, how they're going to react and all that sort of stuff.

and then they isolate them and practice it over and over and fill their heads with all sorts of facts and so forth, which sometimes can be a problem.

But, the preparation, as I said at the start, you know, for George W Bush that long preparation really made a difference for him.

And, so it's important for them to have somebody to play off of and who they play off of and how close they are to the real thing makes a big difference.

And in the preparation and not too many voices.

You want to have a few people, but you don't want somebody getting just totally inundated with thoughts and ideas.

- Thanks Jim.

- Okay.

- We could debate presidential debates for hours It seems.

One thing seems certain, Americans have a growing appetite for debates.

A debate gives audiences a perspective of the presidential candidates.

That can't be acquired in almost any other way.

I'd like to thank Jim Robenalt for being here today and encourage each of you to keep your eyes and minds open.

Until next time on Forum 360.

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