Last week marked the 48th anniversary of the first Kennedy-Nixon presidential debates. The Kennedy-Nixon debates were historic because they dramatically changed the way Americans chose their president. It helped to create an image on the television screen that was more powerful than whistle stops and shaking hands.
Since 1976, it has become a customary tradition of the American presidential election process. Ironically, Howard K. Smith, who served as the moderator for that initial groundbreaking political event between Kennedy and Nixon, never specifically referred to it as a debate. But that is how we've chosen to define them.
Those of you who have participated on debate teams in high school and or college know that what was presented to us in Oxford Mississippi, between Barack Obama and John McCain last week hardly qualifies as a debate. Nor is there anything about the current presidential format that draws on the memories of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in 1858.
By our current standards, Obama won the debate over McCain. Why? Because more pundits and polls said so, that's why.
Obama held his own, he was clearly knowledgeable and confident on matters foreign and domestic, but I did not see a definitive victor either way. But Mc Cain's failure to look at his opponent was not only dismissive, it violated a primary rule of debate tactics--or is that a strategy?
Foreign policy was to be McCain's strength, the mere fact that he failed to blow Obama out of the water--a standard that ought to be difficult for any presidential candidate to achieve--meant advantage Obama.
How many times have we seen the bar of low expectations aide the person in question? Using this criterion if Sarah Palin, in her vice presidential debate against Joe Biden, answers the questions posed by moderator Gwen Ifill coherently, without a gaffe, is she the de facto winner?
Obviously, if Palin turns in a performance reminiscent of her recent television interviews, there is no way even the staunchest Republican pundits can spin victory in what would be a definite defeat.
Suppose Palin crams well for the exam, does her embarrassing answers in her recent interview with Katie Couric become a thing of the past? The problem for Palin is rote memorization presents a far greater challenge than reading from a teleprompter.
The consensus opinion is that Palin will fall on her face against Biden, which is the chattering class's way of saying she probably has him just where she wants him.
Palin could very well be declared the victor in the vice presidential debate, not for her breadth of knowledge, but simply because Biden talked too long or the split screen catches him failing to give her full eye contact, which would allow spin-doctors to define him as sexist.
We should stop fooling ourselves. These are not debates; they never have been--at least not since 1976. Even the 1960 debate morphed into a quasi- beauty contest. More has been made of Kennedy winning the initial debate because of the way he came across on television and Nixon eschewing makeup than the substantive differences between them. A majority of those who listened on the radio thought Nixon won.
The presidential debates are well-rehearsed job interviews, with the winner of the interview being based on a subjective and sometimes amorphous set of standards. Frankly, I question if job interview accurately describes the current process-- one of our democratic pagan rituals perhaps.
Moreover, there is no real exchange, no one is thinking on their feet; it is a format better suited to offer campaign shibboleths than challenging the other candidate's assumptions in a cogent manner.
Debates, however defined, are part of the presidential process, but how many minds are actually swayed because of them?
This may all seem trivial to a nation where only 25 percent can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. But more than half can name at least two members of the Simpson cartoon family.