How Presidential Debates Work

be an interesting uh offspring. That's what goes on in television in my head. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm drinking a fan on Orange. This is why I brought it up. Yeah, I have one of these couple of times a month. That's my indulgence. That's your indulgence. Well, that's that's my work indulgence. I got you. Okay, that's good. It's good. You gotta separate work life from home, like chuckers, Um, are you happy? I am? Okay? Are you ready to start? Yeah? This canna be a good one, and and it's timely,

which is always nice. Yeah, because you know that the um the debates are going on right now. The presidential debates are going on right now. Yeah, the primary debates with the presidential debates. Uh yeah, but they're not official, are they. Well, we'll get to that. I guess, well that was my whole thing. Uh 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 a amazing how the horse race is just

the best sports metaphor analogy for these debates overall. But not just like a horse race, like the kind of like the tin horses like at the carnivals like that. Because Herman Kane all edged forward with his plan and then um mprs like, have you really heard about this? This nine and nine plan? Let's get into it. Rman Kids just kind of hangs his head and goes back a little bit. Romney is, you know, positioning forward and

backward at sure? Um, but the the 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 um, everywhere everywhere you turn, everywhere you look, these are called presidential debates, when in fact they are not

presidential debates. They're GOP primary debates, and uh, 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 Have you seen the Saturday Night Live skit on the GOP debates

thus far? 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 and they're like Paul, yeah, loo, Well that was the joke. It showed you know, Romney and then Caine and Perry and I think I think Backman was in there in the main room, and then it showed like a side

room where they went to h two other candidates. I can't remember it, maybe so yeah, Santorm, Santorm Huntsman and actually showed Santorm in it 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 deckline himself. So it is 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 not even show up. Yeah, but good from Paul because he does keep showing up no matter what, and they joke about it often. Um. But but the the idea that a candidate cannot be treated fairly in these it's just kind of mind blowing to me. Um. But that's not even the official debates, where it's pretty much like written down that you can mistreat candidates that are Republican or Democrats. And so you're a big debater, you're in debate club. Are you familiar

with you were your blazer all the time. We didn't even have that at my school. I don't think we had it at my school any But are you familiar with the history of debates in America? Presidential debates in America? I am, now, are you? Yeah? So what what is it harken back to? Uh? Well, if you want to go back to the beginning, that seems to be where

you were leading me. Um. It all sort of started out in eighty eight when a young buck named Abe Lincoln was running for a senator against Stephen Douglas, and he had a little habit of 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 old 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 in Douglas's wake and be like, oh, you just heard from Douglas. Here's what I think about. Sort of a Rebut so finally Douglas agreed to it, which was pretty groundbreaking. Um. And they had a series of I think like seven debates. Um. It was about the existence of slavery. Douglas was pro

divided country, you know, slave states in free states. Uh. And Lincoln was like, this country can't survive like that. And Lincoln lost that election. Um. And actually when he ran for president in eighteen sixty, he didn't debate at all. But that was the beginning of presidential debates. There was no moderator, there was no there's no format other than these two guys standing there debating one another for three hours. There was no TV, there was no Anderson Cooper. But

that was the beginning of presidential debates in America. Out of a senate race, no less out of a senate race, and then it was took a long hiatus, fifteen election cycles until nineteen when there was an actual presidential debate on the radio between Republican primary connectors Dewey and Stassin, and that got big ratings. I think you have between forty and eighty million people listen to this, which was over a hot topic of the day, which was communism.

Outlong communism, yeah, yeah, certainly not endorsing it. No, it was like, how do you feel about communism, presidential candidate? You like it? Um? And then four years later there's a pretty groundbreaking um debate hosted by the League of Women Voters, who would 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.

Was pretty cool. Yeah, that is cool. Um. They the League of Women Voters in two 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, uh, what they call that in pro wrestling battle royale? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is in a cage. I think probably sometimes not always. Um, that's how I pictured this debate though, Yeah, and a lot of a lot of talking and murmuring. It was probably

very loud debate, you know. Um, 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 gig gig. But how did I get that? Yeah, you're talking about Kennedy Nixon in nineteen sixty and this one was very famous because Nixon was in poor health. He had a

staff infection, He's not feeling well. Apparently his gray suit blended into the background, making him look even more wan and Kennedy rolled in there like all sunny California handsome. I just you know, I met up with Marilyn Monroe. Look, and people are like, hey, this guy looks great. Yeah. Um. And it was this is the first time to the two party nominated candidates or nominees um were debated one another,

just the two yeah. Um. And it was televised debate nineteen sixty and um, yeah, and uh 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. Um and a poll of radio listeners found that a majority thought Nixon one. Uh. A poll

of television viewers found that Kennedy one in their opinion. 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 it led to what maybe your best sentence in the history of your writing here what By the time the twenty century rolled around, they bore about the same resemblance to that first televised debate in nineteen sixty as the game show in the movie The Running Man bears to you bet your life like that. I was delighted. I read that, and it's like all that chuck like that. It's fantastic. But you're right on the money with that. Yeah. Yeah,

so um so nineteen sixty changes everything. The great debate that from that point on Um. Probably the thing that changed the most was the public came to expect debates. So now there's pressure on candidates. Yeah. Um, but there's this thing that candidates could use to their advantage. Um, from the Communications Act in nineteen thirty four 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 a presidential candidate, you have to give the same amount of exposure to that same to to his rivals in the 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 canceled the debate. Yeah, because you couldn't just let that person have the stage. It

it disqualified them. The equal time 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 in getting your butt handed to you on TV, as Nixon did again and again and lost that nine election largely because of that. Those debates with JFK, the televised versions of him at least and yeah, you get bad press for a news cycler too in the newspaper that only you know hoarders keep um, but on television that makes

a really big impression. So yeah, Nixon himself used his presidential veto power to keep the FEC from repealing the equal time provision so that candidates couldn't do that any longer, so he could keep dodging debates whenever he wanted to. Exactly. That's why they call him tricky dick. It is right one reason, so that kind of you know, in the sixties and seventies, debates were in bad shape until the l w V leg of Women Voters stepped back in and said, you know what, we're gonna we need to

clean up this thing. And we are women here us roar right, and let's give a little background on them. They were born out of the suffrage movement. League of Women Voters was because prior to the i think the nineteenth Amendment and the which was past the n um, you didn't have women voters. So right when the the twentie Amendment or the nineteenth Amendment past the um, all of a sudden you did it. So the Suffrage movement translated to the League of Women Voters and said Okay,

I'll go forth and start shaping public policy through your votes. Right, so ya, 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 anyway they could. But it wasn't just the legal women voters. It was the SEC 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,

there's a news event. If you hosted 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 Um Carter did. Carter refused to debate um Reagan and Anderson and John Anderson I think his name was who is an independent candidate? Um?

And so Reagan was like, oh, I'll do it, and Anderson was like, I'll do it, and they debated without Carter. That perhaps lost the election for m and then among was a contributing factor. Any other things a contributing fact. Yeah, I would say the oil embargo, UM, the 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, and oh yeah, he's a statesman.

So the the LVW, they took the reins from seventy six to eighty four because they stepped in is that neutral party that was needed to fulfill that sec ruling. So they said, we need a good format. We need to split these formats into categories based on the types of are 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 and UM or lack of right. So while that was the thing, that's the that's the big problem is like you've got your guy who now has to debate UM 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 Kinge came out of nowhere, just a a like a businessman from Georgia, millionaire nine nine nine, right. He came up with this plan and did really well in a couple of debates, and it just shot to the front. He passed Romney. I think in polls for a little bit. Um, so debates can can really send you, uh to the front of the pack work and 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, so that's how it should be, right, not hell on Earth, but at least like, you know, spontaneous and real and not rehearsed. Right. So, um, the League of Women Voters, Uh, they they did not acquiesce to any demands of any candidates. They made very sure

that all candidates who were qualified got equal time. Um. They just they it was a really fair debate and the Republicans of the Democrats did not like this for our a little more time, didn't they. They they gave Geraldine for Our just a bit more time to write. Yeah,

uh yeah, what was Yeah, she's Mondale's um. So the League of Women Voters kind of, I guess, made enemies out of the Democrats and Republicans who are 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 nur um. They said, you know what, we're gonna veto a hundred of the panelists. You propose, and we're both gonna do it. They basically shut it down. Yeah,

they took control from the League of Women Voters. And the the death knell came in the campaign between George H. W. Bush's campaign and Michael Ducacus's campaign, which got together and created what's called a Memorandum of Understanding. Yeah, and they basically I loved it. It took political candidates don't not want to look like dummies to finally bring the two

parties together on one thing. They're like, well, we can agree on this, right, and they did, and the Memoranum of Understanding was a little secret document that said who could be in the audience and the debates, who could be a panelist? Uh, no more follow up questions, and these are the terms. And the League of Women Voters said, that's stinks because now we're just hosting this event. So screw you. Well, they said that they were they resigned

as um as. Basically the hosts of presidential Debates love that. They cited fraud on the American voter. That's pretty harsh and um the the so the Democrats and the Republicans were like, well, okay, perfect, that's that's not bad. Where 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, nonprofit bipartisan organization. And that is a very very very important word. Not nonpartisan like the League of Women Voter. Sure, bipartisan. That means we represent two things, Republicans and Democrats. That's exactly right. So the the CPD, the Commission on Presidential Debate, UM was established, took over

hosting presidential debates. It became the only organization that could legitimately host an official presidential scheduled UM four of them for presidential election UM, one of which is always a vice presidential debate. Those are always fun and um basically it does a It does a lot for the Democrats and the Republicans chuck. Yeah, they have to obviously. Uh, 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 there from all over the country that you know a lot of times are colleges and so obviously can't be tied to that candidate in any way, right, it can't

be their alma mater. Yeah, So it takes a while to get everything lined up in 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

this the um. Yeah, the CPD uh provides like an even bigger um function for Democrats and Republicans that acts as a shield, so it can issue some really unpopular decisions. Um, but it's not beholden to the public at all. It answers only to the Democrats and Republicans, and it it since it acts as a shield. Everybody gets mad at the Commission on Presidential Debates when really it was the

two campaigns that that came up with that decision. Yeah, like po happened with Pero and everyone remembers Ross Barrow and that was pretty bad. Pero actually, and he was from the Reform Party, had just a seven percent rating before the debates. On election day got about ninetent of the vote, which is a huge the biggest ever. So in nine 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

SEC changed the provision. Oh I'm sorry, the the cp D said you're not coming right because of the 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 cp D who put like the press release out there, so they took the hit for it, right, And the some poll found that like six percent of voters blamed the Clinton campaign for it, nineteen percent blamed the Dole campaign, but fifty percent blamed the Commission on

Presidential Debates, So uh, shield activated. And um, they also got rid of any kind of spontaneity where if you watch presidential debates now, they're basically like, um, they're just press releases. 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. So it's just completely managed and massaged. So um, and they were criticized too. Yeah. John Kerry had a good, um, good

criticism in two thousand. He said, quote, you could have picked ten people off the street who didn't know Jerusalem from Georgia and they would have had better questions. So that's where we stay right now. The Commission on Presidential Debates, it still runs the show as much as there They play 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 um 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 gonna take extra time, and it just it's sort of gets out of hand. It was it was it a presidential debate or a primary debate? No, I mean feels Bush and Gore when 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 with you know, they had the split screen up basically, so that one was um uh two thousand four between Carrie and Bush. Well they seed they did the same thing with Gore because 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 gonna do that. We're going to film breakaway shots that that may have been a scene and thing, though you're right, it may not have been official. Um, let's see what else, Chuck, Well, what makes an ideal debate? We've talked, we pooh 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 um, not holding a debate at the alma mater of one of the candidates or their home state or their hometown or anything like that, and they can't. You also pointed out that it's usually a bigger city too, because you have to have what is it, three thousand available hotel rooms and pay a seventy application fee, So that rules out

anywhere in Kansas, right pretty much? You know, yeah, yeah, Um. There's also the division of time is very important. You know, most of the time candidates will well they almost always get time at the beginning and at the end, and then in the middle that's where it kind of gets like wild and crazy, like how you're gonna divide the time? Uh? And you know, is there gonna be rebuttals? Are you're

gonna allow cross examination? That's very rare, Um, 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 uh, they're like you said, there's still could be a moderator, but you just have more than one person um replacing So there's a moderator replacing the moderator with a panel, but you still have a moderator. Sort of confusing it is. And then town hall is usually the fun the audience asking questions costs examining the the candidate. That's a very rare one too, because you know, anything can happen. Somebody could

go off script. Yeah, that's true. Um, you have to actually qualify for debate. You can't just say how I am 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 debater that you have to be just it's 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

fIF of voter support before the debate. But if you if you qualify for that, and a lot of people do, then you can be in these debates. Supposedly that that was a league of women voters stuff. I wasn't, so

some of that still carried over. That's good. So these things are important, though nonetheless because you know, nowadays as you're 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. Um. 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 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 want and then heck, yeah they

won of course. Um. There are some classic examples of clear winners and losers in debates, Like you mentioned George Bush Like looking annoyed during breakaway shots, he still won. Um. The I think his father was caught looking at his watch a bunch of times during the nineteen with Clinton, that was pretty big. Um. Dan Quayle and the vice presidential debate, he compared himself, do you remember this 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 one and I don't remember the exact quote, but I think he was probably talking about his youth and vigor. Yeah, but I think I remember at the time feeling like like he got shut down by Lloyd Lloyd Benson. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine and you Senator or no, Jack Kennedy. I remember feeling in time like he wasn't really saying he was like Jack Kennedy. I felt sort

of bad for him, but pounced on him. He pounced on him, Uh, just like Reagan did. And I watched that clip earlier too. He got a good laugh in the Mondale debate when he 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 healthwise to to be president? And uh or to remain president. I think it was

re election, wasn't it. And uh, yeah, Carter, and he said, I'm not gonna, 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. And Mondale even busted out laughing. It was a very nice, slight moment. Mindale was awesome. He he loved a good joke, even when he was the butt of it. Yeah, he was that kind of guy. At least he wasn't that case. He was the eighties. George mcgoverned,

um So, Chuck. We we we talked about the nineteen sixty the Great Debate changing everything. Television changed everything, and then the two political parties wrestled um that change and used it to their advantage. Um. But now social media is starting to have that impact, and it really kind of

popped up most for the first time. In two thousand and eight, there was like the CNN YouTube town halls, which were pretty cool, but you know, they people were allowed to submit questions on YouTube and then the two campaigns got to choose what questions were answered or chosen, which they were criticized for. Yeah. But um, my Space and MTV held town halls and um, it's some some social media site. I think it's like, um, get glue were something like that. Um, but it's like it has

cobwebs on it. It's weird. I guess it's for Halloween though. Um. The but the MySpace, uh, MySpace, MTV town hall, I think they were town hall formats. Um. The moderator chose questions as they came in live. So that was like a triumph. Techniques loved it. Yeah, but I mean think about it, that's reinjecting spontaneity through social media. I'm sure Facebook was involved in this Last Earth uninvolved but certainly

lit up. Well, they picked the they picked two one, yeah, okay, Mark Zuckerberg and Eric Schmidt decided who it was, and that Twitter played apart two right. Yeah. There was the 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 a hundred and

forty characters or least. I'm sure McCain had no idea what Twitter was at the time, you know, do your remember there was 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 this set like he didn't know where he was supposed to be. And then Obama seemed like a like a schoolboy, like when the moderator was like your times up, he'd stopped real quick and look at him like, am I in trouble?

And I was like, these are the two guys? Huh? Well? And it's that just proves though, how like influence of perception and television even from a silly like going to commercial break shot of like McCain wandering around or something you know, but yeah, while Obama was answering, he's just wandering around. Well, you know. It was something, but yeah, it'silly influenced my perception, but it influenced my perception perception of Obama too that like he wasn't quite ready. 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. Um, if you want to read a really literary article on presidential debates written by me checks On, a big fan of it, I don't blame that. It's cool. Um, you can type in presidential debates in the search bar at how stuff works dot com. Yeah, yes, which brings up

listener mail Josh. Occasionally we like to shout out to our troops overseas, and we're doing that right now. Okay, Hi guys, Norm who was uh Lizzell's husband. Lazelle wrote in uh, ENORM is currently station because we had conversed back and forth. That's why it seems very casual here. ENORM is currently stationed at f o B Salerno in Afghanistan.

What is that Front Operating Base Forward operating Base sounds right uh in the three hundred and fifty second Combat Support Hospital in the Coast Province that is k h O SD Cost Province. He is a trauma nurse working the evening shifts and will be there till the end of February. Many in his unit are working twelve hour shifts five to six days a week, providing medical care to both US 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 SH or even do a show about how medical combat support hospitals work, that would really help 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. 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. 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 liking to do. Operation support Salerno dot org and that is s A L E R n oh dot org slash Soldier Underscore Support. So, Operations Support Salerno dot org slash Soldier Underscore Support. Many thanks in advance,

and that is from Lazelle. My brother in law's going back for a year. No way, Yeah, where's he going. He's going to Afghanistan really in January. What does he do there? He is a marine colonel, helicopter pilot and dude, he is in line to become a general. No way, how cool is that? That's really cool? So we're all rooting for him for that. Yeah, we should start sort of social media effort on his behalf. I don't think they can consider that. Yeah, it's quite a force to

be reckoned with. He'll make it. He's he's always been in the other class. He's one of those guys. So also, if you want to know what, um what a forward operating based hospital is like, you can just watch mash Sure. I'm sure that's pretty accurate depiction. Yeah, they just sit around and drink homemade whisker on my gin. And yeah, yeah um, thank you, Lizelle, We appreciate that, and good luck to you and norm Um, and good luck to your brother in law, Chuck. Stay safe, everybody. Yeah uh.

If you want to let us know how your family is doing, we're interested, we want to hear. You can tweak to us at s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook's big party over there. Uh it's uh Facebook dot com, slash stuff you should know, and you can send an email in support of Chuck's brother in law two Stuff podcast at how Stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,

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