Foreign
By Dr. Bisi Olawunmi
AMERICAN presidential election debates , as a presentation of contending presidential candidates before the voting public for appraisal, have often been seen as a gamble.- a high stakes encounter that could become a Win or Lose gambit. President Joe Biden is the latest presidential candidate to be knocked out at a presidential election debate. Badly bruised, he still wanted to remain in the ring but his handlers , led by former President Barack Obama, and former House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, had to gently shoo him out of the race, for ‘Sleepy Joe ‘ to begin his final sleep walk into an anti-climax political sunset.
Presidential election debates involve a lot of calculations , a risk assessment with each candidate assessing what the advantages and downsides are before acceding to the encounter.
U.S. presidential election 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 global audience in today’s global village. Afterall, decisions of whoever occupies The White House could 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. Presidential election debates were not held in three elections cycles – 1964, 1968 , 1972 ) – because the leading candidates were so far ahead in the polls they saw no reason to debate their opponents as such debate could not add to their momentum but could turn out harmful to their prospects. However, since 1976, presidential election debates have been held in the 12 succeeding presidential election cycles, including 2024, making a total of 14.
There are continuing contentions about the efficacy presidential election debates with many scholars arguing that a sitting president , seeking re-election should not be compelled to participate in such encounter due to risk of his inadvertently giving out security information that could jeopardize sensitive international relations. There are those who hold that such live televised debates are more of showmanship, where charisma and eloquence may carry day, further personalizing the office of the president. In this regard, many observers believe that the charisma and youthful swagger of Democratic candidate in the 1960 first presidential election debate , Senator John F. Kennedy, aged 43, the youngest to be elected president , gave him the edge over Vice President Richard Nixon, 48, the Republican candidate. However, given the narrow and controversial win of Kennedy, his saturation media support at every stage of the electioneering, including the election debates , could be said to have achieved only a knock down of Nixon, especially as Nixon staged a comeback to win the 1968 and 1972 presidential elections. A third position is that such debates give the media, especially the television networks, an undue power in the determination of 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 the 1976 presidential election when a relatively unknown one term governor of Georgia state , Jimmy Carter , was blown from ‘ Jimmy who ? ‘ to Jimmy frontrunner, among the Democratic party aspirants, eventually romping into election victory to become the 39th president of the United States. In the end, what effusive television projection gave Carter in 1976, critical television took away from Carter in 1980 when he sought re-election in the contest between him and candidate Ronald Reagan of the Republican party. The presidential election debate of that year was a knockout for President Carter. Prior to the debate, he had been buffeted by negative media projection and his debate appearance became his denouement . I 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 Center in Baltimore, Maryland while the second was on October 28 at the Public Music Hall in Cleveland, Ohio. There were three presidential candidates in that election , the third being John Anderson , a former Congressman, who ran as an Independent candidate. President Carter dodged the first debate, apparently for fear of its outcome, so it was between Reagan, a former governor of California and Anderson. Under pressure, President Carter got persuaded to participate in the second debate while Anderson opted out. Since we arrived in the U.S. in early October, it was the second debate that I observed at the residence of a family of three in San Francisco, California. They were divide among the three candidates – father for Reagan , wife for Carter and daughter for Anderson. Carter came into the debate against the backdrop of the humiliating, disastrous failure of the rescue operation he ordered to free the 52 American hostages held at the American Embassy in Tehran, the Iranian capital, portraying him as a weakling. According to Nielson Media Research data, 80.6 million Americans watched the debate. On the podium that night, a fumbling, drained, fatigued 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 was immediate in the family of three – wife and daughter rooted for Reagan. Barely a week later, at the November 5, 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 that of 1988 between Vice-President George H.W. Bush and Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts held on October 13 at the Pualey Pavillion, University of California, Los Angeles. I covered that debate as resident Washington correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria ( NAN ) The polls had projected victory for Gov.Dukakis, with a commanding 17-point lead, as at late summer, but one question gave Dukakis the knockout hit. Violent crime in America had been an election issue and Dukakis was known as a liberal, soft on crime. Bernard Shaw of CNN, the moderator of the debate, had asked Governor Dukakis that if Kitty Dukakis ( his wife ) were to be brutally raped and murdered, would he still oppose death penalty for the murderer ? Rather than show outrage at such a provocative question, Dukakis, showing no emotion, remained cool and went into an academic argument against the death penalty, without even mentioning his wife’s name in his rigmarole !! His unnerving cold-heartedness shocked many Americans, his 17-point lead was wiped out and his presidential dream knocked out. George Bush took the lead and at the November 8, 1988 presidential election crushed Dukakis, winning in 40 of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. and harvesting a whopping 426-112 electoral college vote. A candidate only need to garner 270 electoral college votes to win.
Fast forward to 2024 and the second presidential election debate between Vice –President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, and the overall cautiousness of the two candidates becomes understandable, given the knockout fate that befell President Biden earlier.
16th October, 2024.
C.E.
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