Stuff You Should Know - How Presidential Debates Work

Episode Date: November 10, 2011

The first televised Presidential debate had some odd results: The radio audience tended to believe Nixon won, while television viewers supported Kennedy. Today, debates continue weld an enormous influence on public opinion. But how do they work? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid for it. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, one of the Fanta Girls, it turns out. Did you remember the Fanta Girls? Oh, don't you want that song? Yeah. Don't you want it? Don't you want something? They were almost like the Fruit of the Loom guys. As a matter of fact, they possibly were married. That'd be an interesting offspring.

That's what goes on in television in my head. Yeah, I'm drinking a Fanta Orange, which is why I brought it up. Yeah, I have one of these a couple times a month. That's my indulgence. That's your indulgence? Well, that's my work indulgence. I got you. Okay, that's good. That's good. You got to separate work life from home life, Chuckers. Yes, you do. Are you happy? I am. Okay, are you ready to start? Yeah, this can be a good one, and it's timely, which is always nice. Yeah, because you know that the debates are going on right now. The presidential debates are going on right now. Yeah, the primary debates. The presidential debates. Yeah, but they're not official, are they? Well, we'll get to that.

I guess, well, that was my whole thing. Okay, so have you been watching them at all? I've watched a few of the Republican debates. I find it very entertaining and fun to watch. It is amazing how the horse race is just the best sports metaphor analogy for these debates overall. Yeah, but not just like a horse race, like the kind like the tin horses, like at the carnivals, like that, because Herman Cain alleged forward with his 999 plan, and then MPR is like, have you really heard about this 999 plan? Let's get into it. Yeah. Herman Cain just kind of hangs his head and goes back a little bit. Mitt Romney is positioning forward and backward and all that. Sure. But I was looking on Google News for something

to open this up with, and I mean, that was about all I came up with. But everywhere, everywhere you turn, everywhere you look, these are called presidential debates, when in fact, they are not presidential debates. True. They're GOP primary debates, and they're certainly not official presidential debates, which can only be carried out by one group called the Commission for Presidential Debates, which we'll get to the bottom of in this. Right. Have you seen the Saturday Night Live skit on the GOP debates thus far? No. It's pretty good. Like, you know how, I feel sorry for like some of these candidates that just are clearly shoved to the outside by the rules. You mean Ron Paul? Yeah. Well, that was the joke. It showed, you know,

Romney and Cain and Perry, and I think, I think Bachman was in there in the main room, and then it showed like a side room where they went to two other candidates. I can't remember. Santorum? Maybe so. Yeah. Santorum, no. Santorum Huntsman, and actually it showed Santorum in a dance club. And then it showed Ron Paul, and then it showed Ron Paul through like a surveillance camera in the parking deck, and he was just standing there in the parking deck by himself. That's awesome. But it's very representative of how these things kind of go down sometimes. It's clear that some of these candidates just like, you might as well let me show up. Yeah, but good for Ron Paul because he does keep showing up no matter what, and they joke about it often. But the idea that a candidate

can not be treated fairly in these is just kind of mind blowing to me. But that's not even the official debates where it's pretty much like written down that you can mistreat candidates that aren't Republican or Democrat, right? Sure. So Chuck, you're a big debater. You're in debate club. Are you familiar with that? You wear your blazer all the time. We didn't even have that at my school. I don't think we had it at my school either. But are you familiar with the history of debates in America, presidential debates in America? I am now. Are you? Yeah. So what is it harking back to? Well, if you want to go back to the beginning, that seems to be where you were leading me. It all sort of started out in 1858 when a young buck

named Abe Lincoln was running for senator against Stephen Douglas, and he had a little habit of following Douglas around on the campaign trail and during his speeches would sort of heckle him from the audience. Yeah. And they're like, well, we might as well debate since you're here. Right. And he would also, so Douglas was just like, I'm not talking to you. What are you talking about? So Lincoln would also just follow him stop by stop in Douglas's wake and be like, oh, he just heard from Douglas. Here's what I think about it. Right. Sort of a rebuttal. So finally, Douglas agreed to it was just pretty groundbreaking. And they had a series of, I think like seven debates. It was about the existence of slavery. Douglas was pro divided country,

slave states and free states. And Lincoln was like, this country can't survive like that. And Lincoln lost that election. And actually when he ran for president in 1860, he didn't debate at all. Yeah. But that was the beginning of presidential debates. There was no moderator. There was no format other than these two guys standing there debating one another for three hours. There was no TV. Right. There was no Anderson Cooper. But that was the beginning of presidential debates in America. That's right. Out of a Senate race, no less. Out of a Senate race. And then it was took a long hiatus, 15 election cycles until 1948, when there was an actual presidential debate on the radio between Republican primary conditioners Dewey and Stassen. Yes. And that

got big ratings. I think you have between 40 and 80 million people listen to this, which was over a hot topic of the day, which was communism. Outlawing communism. Yeah. Certainly not endorsing it. No. It was like, how do you feel about communism, presidential candidate, you like it? Yeah. And then four years later, there's a pretty groundbreaking debate hosted by the League of Women Voters who had become huge in debates later on. But this was their first foray and it was a big one. Yeah. I didn't realize how involved they were. It's pretty cool. Yeah, it is cool. The League of Women Voters in 1952 hosted a televised debate, the first televised debate ever. And it featured all of the candidates in both parties and all parties for president.

It's like a, what they call that in pro wrestling, the great battle royale. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which isn't a cage, I think. Sometimes, not always. That's how I picture this debate though. Yeah. And a lot of talking and murmuring. It was probably a very loud debate, you know. But the League of Women Voters hosted this and then kind of went back out of the limelight again and debates did as well until the great debate. Right? Big B, big G. Big G, big D. Big D. The debate. How did I get that? I don't know. Yeah. You're talking about Kennedy Nixon in 1960. And this one was very famous because Nixon was in poor health. He had a staff infection. Yeah. He was not feeling well. Apparently his gray suit blended into the background, making him look even

more Juan. And Kennedy rolled in there like all sunny California handsome. Yeah. I just, you know, met up with Marilyn Monroe look. Right. And people were like, hey, this guy looks great. Yeah. And it was, this is the first time two, the two party nominated candidates or nominees were debated one another. Just the two. Yeah. Yeah. And it was a televised debate 1960 and CBS. Yeah. And it was the, it basically established televised presidential debates as a force to be reckoned with in American politics because a poll of radio listeners, they're just tens and tens of millions of people either listen to it on the radio or watch it on TV. Yeah. And a poll of radio listeners found that a majority thought Nixon won. A poll of television viewers found that Kennedy won in their opinion. That says it

all. Yeah. And it was largely because now there were aesthetics involved. It wasn't just, you know, talkies, you know, squawking out of a box. Like you could see what the person looked like. And if you look terribly like Nixon did, you were going to lose. And this also led to what may be your best sentence in the history of your writing here. What? By the time the 21st century rolled around, they bore about the same resemblance to that first televised debate in 1960 as the game show in the movie The Running Man Bears to You Bet Your Life. Did you like that one? I did. Yeah. I was delighted. I'm glad that. I read that and I was like, I'll bet Chuck likes that. That's fantastic. But you're right on the money with that. Yeah. Yeah. So 1960 changes everything, the great debate.

From that point on, probably the thing that changed the most was the public came to expect debates. So now there is pressure on candidates. Big time. Yeah. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as

guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the I heart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, guys, I'm Kaylee shore. I'm a singer songwriter in Nashville, Tennessee, and I host a podcast called too much to say, which is very aptly titled. I write songs most of the time, but I can't keep my feelings to three minutes and 30 seconds. So to have a whole podcast, it's just amazing. So I share stories from my music career, my childhood, I've been known to read diary entries, play unreleased songs. But no matter what I'm doing, I'm sharing a strong opinion I have

on something. So I share my thoughts on everything from music to martinis, social media to social anxiety, regrets to risky texts, and so much more. Sometimes I even have some really special guests on to share their craziness and what they have too much to say about. So you guys can listen to new episodes of too much to say every Wednesday on the Nashville podcast network available on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcast. But there's this thing that candidates could use to their advantage from the Communications Act of 1934 that established the FCC. And in that Communications Act was this thing called the equal time provision. And the equal time provision said, if you give media exposure to a bona fide presidential candidate,

you have to give the same amount of exposure to that same to his rivals in the election, right? Yeah. And that meant that you could, if you said, I'm not going to come to this debate that pretty much cancel the debate. Yeah. Because you couldn't just let that person have the stage. It disqualified the equal time provision. Yeah. And it's like it probably didn't look great to not debate, but it looked better than going on a debate and getting your butt handed to you on TV. As Nixon did again and again and lost that 1960 election, largely because of that, there's debates with JFK, the televised versions of them at least. Right. And yeah, you get bad press for a news cycle or two in the newspaper that only hoarders keep.

But on television, that makes a really big impression. So yeah, Nixon himself used his presidential veto power to keep the FCC from repealing the equal time provision so that candidates couldn't do that any longer. Right. So he could keep dodging debates whenever he wanted to. Exactly. That's why they call him tricky dick. It is right. One reason. Yeah. So that kind of, you know, in the 60s and 70s, debates were in bad shape until the LWV, League of Women Voters, stepped back in and said, you know what, we're going to, we need to clean up this thing and we are women, heroes, roar. Right. And let's give a little background on them. They were born out of the suffrage movement. That's right. The League of Women Voters was because prior to the,

I think, the 19th Amendment, which was passed in 1920, you didn't have women voters. So right when the 20th Amendment or the 19th Amendment passed in 1920, all of a sudden you did. So the suffrage movement translated to the League of Women Voters and said, okay, now go forth and start shaping public policy through your votes. That's right. So yay, League of Women Voters stepping in to take care of business and make sure these things go off in a fair way. Yeah, because they were just getting hammered any way they could, but it wasn't just the League of Women Voters. It was the FCC had a ruling as well that allowed entree for the League of Women Voters to step in. Was that when they declared it a debate, a bona fide news event? Yeah. And so they said,

this is a news event. If you host a third party host it, then we have an exemption for the equal time provision all of a sudden. Which means now... You have to debate. The debate goes on without you. Well, yeah, you don't have to debate, but you look really bad if you're not showing up. Right. Like Carter did. Carter refused to debate Reagan. And Anderson. And John Anderson, I think his name was, who is an independent candidate. And so Reagan was like, I'll do it. And Anderson was like, I'll do it. And they debated without Carter. That perhaps lost the election for him. Then among was a contributing factor. Many other things. He's a contributing factor. Yeah. I would say the oil embargo, the loss of Delta Force, seeking out the Iran

hostages. There are a lot of things going against Carter. He's done his best work since then, isn't it? Oh, yeah. He's a statesman. So the LVW, they took the reins from 76 to 84 or 88. Because they stepped in as that neutral party that was needed to fulfill that FCC ruling. So they said, we need a good format. We need to split these formats into categories based on the types of, or not the types, but how the questions are asked. And they used an open format which allowed follow up questions among the candidates, which was really a big deal because you can't use your rehearsed. I mean, you can do it as much as you can, but you can also get caught off guard and get that great spontaneity that you're looking for out of your president. Yeah.

Or lack of. Right. So, well, that was the thing. That's the big problem is you've got your guy who now has to debate and who is debating on television who can just blow it all. After a debate or two, you can just completely blow everything. Or like Herman Cain came out of nowhere. Yeah. Just a businessman from Georgia, a millionaire. Nine, nine, nine. Right. He came up with this plan and did really well in a couple of debates and just shot to the front. He passed Romney, I think, in polls for a little bit. So debates can really send you to the front of the pack or can just basically kill all of your chances. Political strategists don't like that at all. Campaign managers don't like that. They like to control everything. Well, this was the

heyday, though, then when the League of Women Voters were running the show. It was the heyday of presidential debates, for sure. If you were a voter. Yeah. If you were a candidate, it was like hell on earth. It was terrifying. Yeah. So that's how it should be. Right. Not hell on earth, but at least spontaneous and real and not rehearsed. Right. So the League of Women Voters, they did not acquiesce to any demands of any candidates. They made very sure that all candidates who were qualified got equal time. Yeah. It was a really fair debate and the Republicans and the Democrats did not like this. They gave Ferrara a little more time, didn't they? They gave Geraldine Ferrara just a bit more time, didn't they? Yeah. Yeah. What was it, 84? Maybe so. Yeah, she was

Mondales. Yeah. So the League of Women Voters kind of, I guess, made enemies out of the Democrats and Republicans who were like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. This is, in effect, a two-party system. So we're pretty powerful. So let's get together. And they started in 1984. They said, you know what? We're going to veto 100 of the panelists you propose and we're both going to do it. They basically shut it down. Yeah. They took control from the League of Women Voters and the death knell came in the 1988 campaign between George H.W. Bush's campaign and Michael Dukakis's campaign, which got together and created what's called a memorandum of understanding. Yeah. And they basically, I love that it took political candidates don't not want to look like dummies to

finally bring the two parties together on one thing. Yeah. They were like, well, we can agree on this, right? Yeah. And they did. And the memorandum of understanding was a little secret document that said who could be in the audience in the 88 debates, who could be a panelist, no more follow-up questions. And these are the terms. And the League of Women Voters said, that stinks because now we're just hosting this event. Is it? So screw you. Well, they said that they resigned as basically the hosts of presidential debates. Yeah. I love that they cited fraud on the American voter. That's pretty harsh. Yeah. And the Democrats and the Republicans were like, well, okay, perfect. That's not bad. We got rid of the League of Women Voters,

but we still need a neutral party. Who is a neutral party? Oh, I've got an idea. We'll create one from scratch. We'll create a neutral party together that we can control. Exactly. Another neutral called the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is a joint non-profit bipartisan organization. And that is a very, very, very important word. Not non-partisan, like the League of Women Voters. Sure. Bipartisan. Yeah. That means we represent two things. Right. Republicans and Democrats. That's exactly right. So the CPD, the Commission on Presidential Debate, was established in 1988, took over hosting presidential debates. It became the only organization that could legitimately host an official presidential debate, scheduled four of them for a presidential election,

one of which is always a vice presidential debate. Those are always fun. Yeah. And basically, it does a lot for the Democrats and the Republicans, Chuck. Yeah. They have to, obviously, it starts about a year out because it takes a lot of time to plan. They have to pick the location, have to pick the moderators. The locations are, it's a little tricky because you want a neutral site. And when you have, you know, a panel of candidates up there, they're from all over the country. They can, you know, a lot of times are colleges. And so it obviously can't be tied to that candidate in any way. Right. It can't be. They're all a moderate. Yeah. So it takes a while to get everything lined up and probably in the back rooms secretly approved by everybody.

Exactly. Because it's like, well, I want this podium to be this high because I can't look short on camera. And I like, my candidate likes the debate hall temperature at this. Yeah. And what's the background look like? Because we don't want you fading away like Richard Nixon. Right. But the, even the CPD or the, yeah, the CPD provides like an even bigger function for Democrats and Republicans that acts as a shield. So it can issue some really unpopular decisions. Yeah. But it's not beholden to the public at all. Sure. It answers only to the Democrats and Republicans. And it, since it acts as a shield, everybody gets mad at the commission on presidential debates when really it was the two

campaigns that came up with that decision. Yeah. Like Perot happened with Perot in 92. Everyone remembers Ross Perot. And that was pretty bad Perot actually. And he was from the reform party had just a 7% rating before the debates on election day got about 19% of the vote, which is a huge jump, the biggest ever. Yeah. So in 1996, when he reared his little head again, Dole and Clinton both said, we don't want to debate this guy. We don't want him around. And so essentially the, the FCC changed the provision. Oh, I'm sorry. The, the CPD said you're not coming. Right. Because of that equal time provision had been like canceled. Right. And that was the shield. So even though Clinton and Dole were behind it,

it was really the CPD who put like the press release out there. So they took the hit for it. Right. And the, some poll found that like 6% of voters blame the Clinton campaign for it. 19% blame the Dole campaign, but 50% blame the commission on presidential debates. So shield activated. Yes. And they also got rid of any kind of spontaneity, where if you watch presidential debates now, they're basically like, they're just press releases. Yeah. There's no follow up questions. There's just like, here's the question that you've known for three weeks. We're going to ask you. Let's hear your answer. Yeah. So it's just completely managed and massaged. So, and they were criticized too. Yeah. John Kerry had a good, good criticism

in 2000. He said, quote, you could have picked 10 people off the street who didn't know Jerusalem from Georgia and they would have had better questions. So that's where we stand right now. The commission on presidential debates still runs the show as much as ever. They're, they play it a little looser though. Like these candidates sort of run over the rules, like barring someone like Anderson Cooper coming out there and taping someone's mouth shut. You still see them like, you know, running over the time. And I remember when Bush and Gore debated one another that was, there's just so much sniping about what I was supposed to have my time and he had his time. So I'm going to take extra time and it just, it sort of gets out of hand.

Was it, was it a presidential debate or a primary debate? No, I mean, if it was Bush and Gore, it wouldn't a primary debate or well, no, but was it like hosted by CNN or something like that? Or was it official? You know, I don't remember. I mean, it was the famous one where they started showing reaction shots and it showed George Bush getting all perturbed each time. Gore would, you know, they had the split screen up basically. So that one was 2004 between Kerry and Bush. Well, they did the same thing with Gore as I watched it earlier. And George Bush is annoyed?

Well, they just showed a split screen. So while Gore was talking, it showed Bush's reactions the whole time and then vice versa. Right. And apparently there was a memorandum of understanding that the networks were just like, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to film breakaway shots that that may have been a CNN thing, though. You're right. It may not have been official. The war on drugs impacts everyone whether or not you take America's public enemy. Number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table without any drugs. Of course,

yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that will piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. Cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey guys, I'm Kaylee Shore. I'm a singer songwriter in Nashville, Tennessee, and I host a podcast called Too Much to Say, which is very aptly titled. I write songs most of the

time, but I can't keep my feelings to three minutes and 30 seconds. So to have a whole podcast, it's just amazing. So I share stories from my music career, my childhood. I've been known to read diary entries, play unreleased songs, but no matter what I'm doing, I'm sharing a strong opinion I have on something. So I share my thoughts on everything from music to martinis, social media to social anxiety, regrets to risky texts, and so much more. Sometimes I even have some really special guests on to share their craziness and what they have too much to say about. So you guys can listen to new episodes of Too Much to Say every Wednesday on the Nashville podcast network available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your podcast.

Um, let's see, what else Chuck? Well, what makes an ideal debate? We've talked, we've poo-pooed it. What makes a good one? Well, a good one. Like you said, it needs to be fair. So like the CPD, the CPD is doing some stuff fairly like not holding a debate at the alma mater of one of the candidates or their home state or their hometown or anything like that. Yeah. And they can't, you also pointed out that it's usually a bigger city too because you have to have, what is it, 3,000 available hotel rooms and pay a $7,500 application fee so that rules out anywhere in Kansas. Right. Pretty much. You know. Yeah. Yeah. There's also the division of time is very important. Sure. You know, most of the time candidates will, will almost always get time

at the beginning. Sure. And at the end. Yeah. And then in the middle, that's where it kind of gets like wild and crazy, like how you're going to divide the time. And, you know, is there going to be rebuttals? Are you going to allow cross-examination? That's very rare. But ideally, you, everybody has equal time in the middle. And then you usually have like a moderator. Yeah. There's three formats, basically. Well, there's moderator panel in Town Hall. Yeah. And there's almost always a moderator, no matter what. And all three of them. Yeah. And the panelists, it's, like you said, there still could be a moderator, but you just have more than one person replacing. So there's a moderator replacing the moderator with a panel,

but you still have a moderator. Right. Sort of confusing. It is. And then Town Hall is usually the audience asking questions, cross-examining the candidate. That's a very rare one, too, because, you know, anything can happen. Somebody could go off script. Yeah. That's true. You have to actually qualify for a debate. You can't just say, hi, I'm Joe Walsh and I'm running for president. And I want to be on there singing Rocky Mountain Way. Yeah. The rules for qualifying for a debate are that you have to be, it has to be statistically possible for you to win in the electoral college. So your name has to appear on like a certain amount of state ballots. Right. Yeah. And you have to have a 15% voter support before the debate. Right. But if you

qualify for that, and a lot of people do, then you can be in these debates supposedly. That was a League of Women Voter stuff. Oh, was it? Yeah. So some of that still carried over. Yeah. That's good. So these things are important, though, nonetheless, because, you know, nowadays is your influenced almost as much by what everyone says about the debate as the debate itself, because immediately after, and actually even during sometimes, the debates, the networks and the cable stations and the internet will start saying, well, who won? This was strong. He was strong here. She was strong there. They pull people on, you know, immediately, afterward, either on the internet or by telephone, and sort of say, well, this is who won regardless of what

you think. Well, yeah. And then once the polls released, it's like, yeah, your perception is affected. It's all about perception. If you were maybe on the fence before, it's like, oh, well, everybody else thinks they won. And then heck, yeah, they won, of course. There are some classic examples of clear winners and losers in debates. Like you mentioned, George Bush, like looking annoyed during breakaway shots. But he won. He still won. I think his father was caught looking at his watch a bunch of times during the 1980-1992 debate with Clinton. That was pretty big. Dan Quayle in the vice presidential debate, he compared himself. Do you remember this? Oh yeah, man. Big, big mistake. He compared himself to, this is Dan Quayle. He compared

himself to John F. Kennedy. Well, it was a loose comparison, though. I don't remember the exact quote, but I think he was probably talking about his youth and vigour. Yeah. But I think I remember at the time feeling like, like he got shut down by Lloyd Benson. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine and you, Senator, are no Jack Kennedy. I remember feeling in time like, he wasn't really saying he was like Jack Kennedy. Yeah. I felt sort of bad for him. But Benson pounced on him. He pounced on him just like Reagan did. And I watched that clip earlier too. He got a good laugh in the Mondale debate when, I can't remember the moderator, but he asked Reagan about his health and his age as the oldest candidate. And they said, you appeared tired recently

after your meetings in Russia. And quite honestly, do you have what it takes health-wise to be president and or to remain president? I think it was reelection, wasn't it? Yeah. And yeah, because he'd be Carter. And he said, I'm not going to, you know, bring this in age, bring age into this equation. I don't want to exploit for political purposes the youth and inexperience of my candidate or my rival. Yeah. And Mondale even busted out laughing. It was a very nice, light moment. Mondale was awesome. He loved a good joke. Even when he was the butt of it. Yeah. Yeah. He was that kind of guy. At least he was in that case. He was the 80s George McGovern. So Chuck, we talked about the 1960s, the great debate changing everything,

television changed everything. Sure. And then the two political parties wrestled that change and used it to their advantage. But now social media is starting to have that impact. And it really kind of popped up most for the first time in 2008. There was like the CNN YouTube town halls. Yeah. Which were pretty cool. But you know, people were allowed to submit questions on YouTube. And then the two campaigns got to choose what questions were answered or chosen. Yeah, which they were criticized for. Yeah. But MySpace and MTV held town halls. What's MySpace? It's some social media site. I think it's like Get Glue or something like that. Oh, it's cute. But it's like it has cobwebs on it. Yeah. It's weird. I guess it's for Halloween though. Gotcha. But the MySpace MTV town hall,

I think they were town hall formats. The moderator chose questions as they came in live. So that was like a triumph. Yeah. Techiex loved it. Yeah. But I mean, think about it. That's re-injecting spontaneity through social media. Yeah. True. I'm sure Facebook was involved in this last, or not involved, but certainly lit up. Well, they picked the, they picked who won. Oh, they did. Yeah. Okay. Mark Zuckerberg and Eric Schmidt decided who it was. And that's Twitter played a part too, right? Yeah. There was that debate between McCain and Barack Obama, or their surrogates who knew how to use Twitter. And they were responding to questions from a moderator from time in 140 characters or less. I'm sure McCain had no idea what Twitter was at

the time. Do you remember, there was this one debate between, it was an official debate between Obama and McCain. And McCain looked like he was just wandering around this set. Like he didn't know where he was supposed to be. Yeah. And then Obama seemed like a schoolboy. Like when the moderator was like, your time's up, he'd stop real quick and look at him like, am I in trouble? Yeah. And I was like, these are the two guys, huh? Well, and it's, that just proves though how like influence of perception in television, even from a silly like going to commercial break shot of like McCain wandering around or something in Obama. No, this, this was during, well, yeah, while Obama was answering, he's just wandering around. Oh, well, you know, it was

something, but yeah, it, it, it's all about perception. It influenced my perception. Yeah, big time. But it influenced my perception, perception of Obama too, that like he wasn't quite ready. Yeah. Yeah. Something else. That television, huh? Yeah. Let's go vote, Chuck. Let's go vote for something. Yeah, I'll vote. Did you feel like voting on something? Suffrage. That's already been done. Okay. If you want to read a really literary article on presidential debates written by me, Chuck's not a big fan of it. I don't blame him. It's cool. That was good. Um, you can type in presidential debates in the search bar at howstuffworks.com. Yeah. Yes. Which brings up listener mail. Josh, occasionally we like to shout out to our troops overseas.

We're doing that right now. Okay. Uh, hi guys. Norm, who was, uh, Lizzel's husband, Lizzel wrote in. Norm is currently stationed because we had to reverse back and forth. That's why it seems very casual here. Norm is currently stationed at FOB Salerno in Afghanistan. What is that front operating base? Forward operating base. Sounds right. Uh, in the 352nd Combat Support Hospital in the coast province, uh, that is K. H. O. S. D. Cost province. He is a trauma nurse working the evening shifts and will be there until the end of February 2012. Many in his unit are working 12 hour shifts, five to six days a week providing medical care to both U S troops and Afghan civilians. Right now his family basically is the unit in Afghanistan. So I was wondering if you

can give a shout out to him and his C S H or even do a show about how medical combat support hospitals work. Uh, that would really help, uh, make him and others in his unit happy. A lot of them are kind of blue right now, obviously for being in the same place, doing the same thing day in and day out while handling the trauma there. A norm secretly, which is that you and Josh would be a part of the U S O and travel and share your show with folks abroad. I would go to Afghanistan. I would totally do that. Uh, I've listed a site which will give you more information on the people who have given a year or more to help our country. So if you guys want to go check out what combat support hospitals are like, you can go to operation support Salerno.org and

that is S A L E R N O dot org slash soldier underscore support. So operation support Salerno dot org slash soldier underscore support. Many thanks in advance. And that is from Lizelle F. Nice Lizelle. My brother-in-law is going back for a year. No way. Yeah. Where is he going? He's going to Afghanistan. Oh really? In January. Wow. What does he do there? He is a marine Colonel helicopter pilot and dude, he is in line to become a general. No way. Like how cool is that? That's really cool. So we're all rooting for him for that. Yeah, we should start some sort of social media effort on his behalf. I don't think they care to consider that. Are you sure? Yeah. It's quite a force to be reckoned with. He'll make it. He's always been in the head of the class.

He's one of those guys. So also if you want to know what a forward operating base hospital is like, you can just watch MASH. Sure. I'm sure that's a pretty accurate depiction. Yeah, they just sit around and drink homemade whisker on my gin. Yeah. Thank you, Lizelle. We appreciate that. And good luck to you and Norm. And good luck to your brother-in-law, Chuck. Stay safe, everybody. Yeah. If you want to let us know how your family's doing or interested, we want to hear. You can tweet to us at SYSK podcast. You can join us on Facebook's big party over there. That's facebook.com slash stuff you should know. And you can send an email in support of Chuck's brother-in-law to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,

Stuff from the Future. Join How Stuff Works staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. Cops. Are they just, like, looting? Are they just, like, pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like, what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola que tal, mi gente. It's Chiquis from Chiquis and Chill Podcast. Welcome to the show. I talk about anything and everything. I did have a

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