By Bisi Olawunmi
As a presentation of presidential candidates before the voting public for appraisal, American presidential election debates have often been seen as a gamble – a high-stakes encounter that could turn into a win-or-lose gambit.
President Joe Biden is the latest presidential candidate to be knocked out at a presidential election debate. Badly bruised in his encounter with former President Donald Trump at the first presidential election debate on 27 June 2024, President Biden still wanted to remain in the race, but his handlers, led by former President Barack Obama, and former House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, had to gently shoo him out of the ring, for ‘Sleepy Joe’ to begin his final sleepwalk into an anti-climax political sunset. His deputy, vice-president, Kamala Harris, succeeded to the ticket of the Democratic party, as its presidential candidate.
Presidential election debates involve a lot of calculations, a form of risk assessment by each candidate of the advantages and downsides before acceding to the encounter.
In the U.S., the debates are part of continuing efforts to bring candidates for the most powerful political office in the world closer to the American people, and by extension, a wider audience in today’s global village. After all, the decisions of whoever occupies the White House could and do have global implications.
The first American televised presidential election debate was held between Vice President Richard Nixon (Republican) and Senator John F. Kennedy (Democrat) in 1960. There were no debates in three subsequent elections -1964,1968, and 1972, because the leading candidates were so far ahead in the opinion polls, they saw no reason to debate their opponents since such a move could alter the momentum.
However, since 1976, candidates have participated in debates in 12 successive presidential election cycles, including in 2024, for a total of 14.
There are continuing contentions about the relevance of presidential election debates with many scholars arguing that a sitting president, seeking re-election should not be compelled to participate in such encounters due to the risk of inadvertently divulging sensitive security information that could jeopardise international relations.
Some hold that live televised debates are more of a showmanship, where charisma and eloquence may carry the day further personalising the Office of the president. In this regard, many observers believe that the charisma and youthful swagger of the Democratic candidate in the 1960 first presidential election debate, Senator Kennedy, aged 43, the youngest to be elected president, gave him the edge over his Republican opponent Vice President Nixon, 48.
However, given Kennedy’s narrow and controversial win, his saturation media support during the electioneering, including the election debates, might have only achieved a knockdown of Nixon, who staged a comeback to win the 1968 and 1972 presidential elections.
A third position is that presidential election debates give the media, especially the television networks, undue power in determining election outcomes, a point made by Biden supporters who questioned why one debate, however poor the performance, should force the exit of a candidate.
The growing importance of media projection of candidates in presidential elections was on display in 1976 when a relatively unknown one-term governor of Georgia state, Jimmy Carter, was catapulted from ‘Jimmy who?’ to Jimmy frontrunner, among the Democratic party aspirants, and his eventually romping into victory as America’s 39th president.
In the end, what effusive television projection gave Carter in 1976, critical television took away from him in 1980 when he sought re-election against Republican candidate Ronald Reagan but lost.
The presidential election debate of that year was a knockout for President Carter. Before the debate he had been buffeted by negative media projection and his debate appearance became his denouement.
This writer was among five Nigerian journalists, sponsored by the U.S. State Department, to cover that election. At a point, we were attached to the Reagan campaign bus, with other reporters, from Peoria, Illinois through Hillsboro, Eureka and Springfield, where Reagan visited the tomb of the American Civil War hero, President Abraham Lincoln, and on to a rousing, animated rally in Saint Louis, Missouri, by the majestic Mississippi River.
There were two presidential election debates in 1980. The first was held on September 21 at the Convention Centre in Baltimore, Maryland, while the second was on October 28 at the Public Music Hall in Cleveland, Ohio. The third of the three candidates in that election was John Anderson, a former Congressman, who ran as an Independent. President Carter dodged the first debate, apparently for fear of its outcome, so it was between Reagan, a former governor of California and Anderson. President Carter was persuaded to participate in the second debate, while Anderson opted out.
This was the second American presidential debate that this writer observed first-hand. Carter came to the debate against the backdrop of the humiliating, disastrous failure of the rescue operation he ordered to free 52 American hostages held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, the Iranian capital, portraying him as a weakling.
According to Nielson Media Research data, 80.6 million Americans watched the debate. That night on the podium, a fumbling, drained, President Carter cut a pathetic image, while gangling, gung-ho candidate Reagan projected strength by threatening Iran with a blistering attack within hours of assuming the presidency.
By the time the debate ended, Carter was knocked out, cold. The swing of support for Reagan was spontaneous. Barely a week later, in the 5 November 1980 presidential election, Ronald Reagan had a landslide victory, winning in 48 of the 50 states with Carter winning only in his home state of Georgia and in Minnesota, the home state of his vice president, Walter Mondale.
The third U.S. presidential election debate knockout was in 1988 between Vice President George H.W. Bush and Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts held on October 13 at the Pauley Pavilion, University of California, Los Angeles.
This writer covered that debate as a resident Washington Correspondent of NAN. Opinion polls had projected victory for Gov. Dukakis, with a commanding 17-point lead, by late summer, but one question gave Dukakis the knockout hit. Violent crime in America then was a major election issue and Dukakis was known as a liberal, soft on crime.
Bernard Shaw of CNN, the moderator of the debate asked Governor Dukakis if Kitty his wife was to be brutally raped and murdered, would he still oppose the death penalty for the murderer? Rather than show outrage at such a provocative question, as many would, Dukakis, displayed no emotion, and went into an academic argument against the death penalty, and without mentioning his wife’s name.
His cold-hearted response shocked many Americans, and his 17-point lead in the race was wiped out, along with his presidential dream.
George Bush seized the initiative and crushed Dukakis in the 8 November 1988 election winning 40 of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., with a whopping 426-112 electoral College votes. A candidate only required 270 electoral votes to win the American presidency.
Fast forward to 2024, and the second presidential election debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, and the deliberate caution displayed by the two candidates becomes understandable, given Biden’s knockout during the first debate.
Harris and Trump were apparently, wary of stepping on the banana peels which the presidential election debate has become.
However, whatever the outcome of the 7 November 2024 presidential election, the precedent of a candidate being forced out of an American presidential race by poor debate performance, without a second chance, has brought an ominous dimension to the electoral contest that could be seen as an abridgement of the people’s right to choose their leaders.
*Dr Bisi Olawunmi, a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Mass Communication, Adeleke University, Ede, is a former Washington Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), and a Fellow of, the Nigerian Guild of Editors (FNGE). Tel: 0803 364 7571 Email: olawunmibisi@yahoo.com*
