Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The History of Presidential Debates

Episode Date: October 22, 2020

Every four years, citizens of the United States sit down for one or more nights to watch something which is called the Presidential Debates. The debates have become a centerpiece of US Presidential elections, but it wasn’t always that way. Learn more about the history of presidential debates, or the lack thereof, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every four years, the citizens of the United States sit down for one or more nights to watch something which is called the presidential debates. The debates have become a centerpiece of U.S. presidential elections, but it wasn't always that way. Learn more about the history of the presidential debates, or the lack thereof, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Fear is the virus is trending on TikTok. Vaccines are poison. Then your yoga teacher says that sex traffic children are being sacrificed by satanic liberals. but it's all okay. The great awakening is coming.

What is happening? Every week on Conspiratuality Podcast, we explore the fever dreams that suck friends, family, and wellness gurus down the right-wing cult spiral in a search for salvation. This episode is sponsored by audible.com. My recommendation for this episode is

The Lincoln Douglas Debates. This is a recreation of the original Lincoln Douglas Debates. Richard Rifis plays Stephen Douglas and David Straythern is Abraham Lincoln. This is the first time these historic debates have been brought to life in audio. You can get a free one-month trial to Audible and two free audiobooks by going to

Audibletrial.com slash everything everywhere or by clicking on the link in the show notes. The history of presidential debates is shockingly thin. For all of the 18th century, the entire 19th century, and for most of the 20th century, there were no presidential debates. Zero. Zip. Nata.

This makes a lot more sense if you realize the nature of campaigning before electronic media. Early on, presidential candidates literally did nothing. It was looked upon as being undignified for a candidate to speak on their own behalf. Campaigns consisted of party loyalists who would go and drum up support in local communities around the country. Candidates would mostly stay at home and meet with dignitaries who came to visit and pay respects. The first presidential candidate who even bothered to give speeches was William Henry Harrison in 1840, who gave 20 speeches while traveling on horseback. One of the first widely publicized debates between any candidates for any office

was between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas for the Senate seat from the state of Illinois in 1858. They did a series of debates around the state, each of which lasted three hours. The strange thing was that the people didn't vote for senators in 1858. State legislatures did. The entire campaign was more for their parties than for themselves. Lincoln brought about a major innovation in his 1860 campaign for president with the wide use of broadsheets. These were large billboard-like prints which were put on the sides of buildings. Lincoln got his image everywhere in probably the first use of mass media in a U.S. presidential election.

However, there were no debates. Even with the rise of radio and motion pitchers, there were still no presidential debates. Not only were there no debates, but in the course of my research, I couldn't even find a single example of two presidential candidates ever sharing the same stage during an election. I'm sure it probably happened, but if it did, it was a really rare occurrence. The first ever attempt at a presidential debate occurred in 1940, when Republican nominee Wendell Wilkie challenged the incumbent Democrat Franklin Roosevelt to a debate in person. FDR declined the invitation. The first ever debate between any presidential candidates occurred on May 17, 1948, in the Republican primary between

New York Governor Thomas Dewey and former Minnesota Governor Harold Stasson. The debate took place before the Oregon primary and was on the topic of if the Communist Party of the United States should be outlawed. The debate was broadcast on the radio nationally by most major networks and had an estimated national audience of 40 million people. To put that into perspective, the audience for the most recent presidential debate was estimated to be 60 million people, even though the population today is over 2.2 times larger than it was in 1948. There were no debates in 1952. In 1956, the Democrats had a primary debate of their own

between Adelae Stevenson and Estes-Crafauer. It was the first televised political debate in American history. Accordingly, the debate was only one hour long as it was on television. In 1956, a student from the University of Maryland named Fred Kahn tried to get both parties' nominees, Adelae Stevenson and Dwight Eisenhower, to appear in a debate. He sent out letters to a wide number of people, including Eleanor Roosevelt, who passed it on to the Stevenson campaign, but nothing ended up happening. The first true presidential debate between presidential nominees from different parties occurred in Chicago on September 26, 1960, between the Democratic nominee, Senator John Kennedy, and Republican nominee Vice President Richard Nixon. Most historians say that

Kennedy won the first debate because he was prepared for television. He wore makeup, looked poised, and he wore a suit that stood out from the background on black black and white TV. Nixon, who was very comfortable doing radio, didn't have any makeup and wore a suit that blended into the stage. There were three other debates held between Kennedy and Nixon, and the consensus was that Nixon won the second and third debate, with the fourth being a draw. Unfortunately for Nixon, the audience for the first debate was by far the largest. This would be the only debate that Nixon would ever participate in because there were no more debates for the next 16 years. 1964, 1968, and 1972, did not.

have any presidential debates. The next debate was in 1976 between Republican President Gerald Ford and Democrat Governor Jimmy Carter. The 1976 debates were sponsored by the League of Women Voters, whereas the 1960 debates were sponsored by the TV networks. 1976 also had the very first vice presidential debate between Walter Mondale and Bob Dole. In 1980, the debates had to confront an issue they hadn't had to deal with before, a third candidate. Representative John Anderson ran an independent bid for president and was showing up in the polls. President Jimmy Carter didn't want to appear in any debates with Anderson. Governor Ronald Reagan didn't want to appear in any debates without him. The first debate was between Reagan and

Anderson with Carter sitting out. The second debate and the vice presidential debates were canceled. For the third debate, Reagan acceded to Carter's demand and Anderson was not included. Like John Kennedy 20 years before, Reagan's years of on-camera experience as an actor was widely believed to give him the edge. In 1983, it was revealed that Reagan's campaign had access to Carter's debate briefings, which led to a scandal called Debategate. In 1987, after sponsoring the debates for the three previous elections, the League of Women Voters pulled out.

Their complaint was that the two major parties were trying to micromanage and control every aspect of the debate. In their statement, they said, quote, The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship from the presidential debates because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign trail charades, devoid of substance, spontaneity, and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.

unquote. Since then, every presidential debate has been sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, an organization that is co-chaired by the immediate past chairs of the Democratic and Republican National Committees. Since the Commission has taken over the debates, only one person from outside the major parties, Ross Perot in 1992, has taken part in a presidential debate. In 2000, the Commission increased the threshold for participation in a presidential debate. A candidate must now poll at 15% or better on five national polls to be included. In 2008, the Center for Public Integrity labeled the Commission as a secretive tax-exempt organization, who gets 93% of its funding from six secret donors whose names have never been released.

I'll end this discussion of presidential debates with what might have been the greatest presidential debate in history, but sadly, it never happened. In 1987, Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican nominee for president, said in an interview that had President Kennedy lived, they had planned a series of unprecedented debates. He said, quote, Jack Kennedy and I had been friends for a long time. I actually had a few telephone conversations with him throughout the summer and early autumn of 1963. We eventually developed a debate format that would have completely altered how Americans chose their president. Unfortunately, the president, and die later on that fall. Afterward, his successor, Lyndon Johnson, wanted no part of it, unquote. Kennedy and Goldwater, despite their obvious political differences, were good friends. The format they discussed was similar to the original Lincoln-Douglas debates from 1858. There would be no moderator, no time limits, and they would travel together on Air Force One. They would question each other

instead of journalists asking the questions for them, and they were prepared for each debate to last several hours. Goldwater noted why the debates had the power to be transformative. Quote, I also think that the nation would have been surprised to see the amount of respect and friendship we had for one another, despite our obvious differences. Unquote. It's too bad that the Goldwater Kennedy debates never happened. They could have set a precedent that would have changed presidential campaigns for decades. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James Maccala. Please remember to support the show over at patreon.com, where you can get merchandise, and to leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

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