[music]
-Television brings the candidates into millions
of homes.
The moments we remember from televised debates
are woven into our political folklore.
From the knock-out lines…
-There you go again.
-Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.
To the cringeworthy gaffes…
-The third agency of government I would do away with, the
education, uh, the uh…
[Sighs]
-Commerce and let’s see...
-Rumors on the, uh, internets.
-I can’t.
Oops.
But what if the way debates are often covered...
-Let’s start with the style points.
Has missed what we really gain from them?
-The way we're trained to think about the debates has been
this idea that image triumphs over substance.
And I think that's false.
[Music]
-Voters look, listen and make up their minds as each
of the nominees outlines his program, explains his position
on vital campaign issues.
The first public debate between presidential nominees was a
creation of the television age.
-Debates seen and heard by millions of people.
And that first 1960 face-off between Richard Nixon and
John F. Kennedy became a parable about the new
medium’s outsized influence.
-Kennedy is this sort of handsome, young candidate.
He’s going up against the sitting vice president, Richard Nixon.
-I of course disagree with Senator Kennedy.
-Nixon hadn't wanted to use makeup.
He thought this would make him seem unmanly.
So he had put on what they called Lazy Shave,
kind of this powder makeup.
Over the years, conventional wisdom
about the debate took shape.
Kennedy won because he looked better.
-You see it in books by scholars.
You see it repeated by network executives.
Don Hewitt, who was
the producer of the debates themselves.
-That election turned on makeup.
The best evidence for this story?
It’s often said that TV viewers favored Kennedy,
while listeners on the radio called the debate for Nixon.
-If you listen to it on radio,
those people overwhelmingly picked Nixon to win.
-Nixon won on the radio, right?
-But people who watched it
on television
thought Kennedy had won.
-I assumed this to be true.
I probably taught this to lots of college students
who took my classes and my lectures.
But how exactly do we know Nixon won on the radio?
David Greenberg dug into this question in his book,
“Republic of Spin.”
-As it turns out, that's a pretty dubious
and probably false claim.
People have tried to track down those radio surveys.
They found that maybe there's one marketing survey
of a couple hundred people.
We don't know whether these were people who were already
leaning toward Nixon.
Was this an older sample?
Nobody’s really been able to pin this down or back it up.
-Our generation of Americans...
-Just by standing side by side with the vice president
and at least holding his own, if not more, Kennedy was able
to convince a lot of people that he was presidential timber.
-Republican leadership has opposed federal aid
for education, medical care
for the aged, development of the Tennessee Valley, development
of our natural resources.
-Mr. Nixon, would you like to comment on that statement?
-I have no comment.
-The idea that Kennedy won because he had the better
makeup job I think has left us with a distorted view
of how the presidential debates work.
-I would urge all prospective candidates in the future: Be sure
that you remember that more important than what you say, is
how you look on television.
At that point, that debate was the most-watched broadcast in
television history.
The 1960 debates were widely called
decisive in the election. Some argued they would corrupt the
public judgment.
And candidates wouldn’t agree to another debate
until 16 years later.
-What people typically think is that this was the triumph of the
television image over substantive politics.
The idea that political wins or losses can be chalked up to
television image may help explain the way some media and
pundits are framing the
debates in the lead-up to the 2020 election.
-Castro.
He was polished, he was prepared.
He looked presidential.
-You mentioned Kamala Harris.
That first debate she was strong but there was a warmth there.
And if some dismissed televised debates in 1960
as a spectacle, critics say debate coverage
in recent elections has become more like a circus.
-The frills that surround the debates have really magnified
in the intensity over the years and it just seems like
every election cycle it gets that much crazier.
-We’ll draw a name and a date to determine which night
each candidate will appear.
-A lot of this stuff is just goofy.
-I want a word or a phrase to describe tonight’s debate.
-Sophomoric.
-Low on substance.
-Disgusting.
-Schoolyard brawl.
-CNN, for instance, has done this little squiggly line that rises or
falls on the basis of whether people are responding favorably
or negatively.
-This is the perception analyzer.
If Andie is unhappy during the debate with what she’s hearing, she’ll
turn it to the left.
If she feels like, wow, what the candidate is saying is really
resonating with her, she’ll turn it all the way —
wonderful job, Andie — up to 100.
Then there are the so-called spin rooms...
-I’m down here in the flea market of propaganda.
Where campaign operatives shill for their candidates after
the debates are done.
-We are here in the spin room and there is a lot of
spinning going on.
-He’s in spin alley tonight.
David, go ahead, spin me.
-This idea of spinning the debates in a way that’s favorable
to a particular candidate.
It’s worthless, it’s content that, that has no, you know,
has a lot of calories, but it doesn’t have any dietary value.
Nevertheless, many observers insist these televised face-offs
remain a valuable resource.
-The debates give voters something that no other
political mechanism does.
Candidates can prepare and they do prepare, and they can
walk in with things they want to say, but they can’t really
control the situation.
Anything can happen, and history shows that there are a
lot of moments along the way where the candidates were
thrown off their game.
-I am pleased to welcome you to the second presidential debate.
-Michael Dukakis was thought to be a, sort of a cold,
emotionless technocrat that people could not warm up to.
-If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor
an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?
-And he gave this very cold, rational response.
-No, I don’t, Bernard, and I think you know I’ve opposed
the death penalty during all of my life.
I don’t see any evidence that it’s a deterrent and….
-So debates can be dangerous.
-There’s no better example than in 1976 when Jerry Ford,
then president, said that...
-There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe
and there never will be under a Ford Administration.
-Uh, I’m sorry.
I want, could I just follow— Did I understand
you to say, sir, that the Russians are not using Eastern Europe as
their own sphere of influence and occupying most of the
countries there?
-Ford dug in his heels and didn’t want to apologize
or clarify it right away.
It gave Democrats the opportunity
to reopen those questions about whether Ford was really up to
the job.
-In politics, performance, image, appearance
are expressions of substance.
Candidates’ image conveys their approach to solving problems,
the way they can present themselves and communicate
their ideas, their temperament.
Who’s to say that these aren’t important qualities
to think about as we’re choosing a president?
Whether or not debates truly sway elections is an open question.
And with President Trump raising questions about his
participation in the 2020 debates,
the tradition is more fragile than it may seem.
-The idea that a candidate can decide that they’re not going to
debate is not unthinkable whatsoever.
What would be lost would be the ability for the American
people to see the candidates unvarnished, accountable
to each other and tested against each other.
-It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament
of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.
-Because you’d be in jail.
In 2016, the debates between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton
were major media events, with one drawing a
record 84 million viewers.
And if they happen in 2020,
the debates between the president and his Democratic opponent
will be among the most anticipated events of the campaign.
-We get at least a little peek into the window of how these people
operate and how they think, and how they communicate.
That’s a rare and precious thing.