Most Americans naively believe that presidential elections are largely decided in the presidential debate arena. The solemn fact, however, is that over the last 50 years or so the ‘Great Debates’ have rarely determined the winner. In The Control Room, Martin Plissner, retired executive director at CBS News, devotes an entire chapter to the widely held notion that presidential debates have an overwhelming influence on the final outcome and exposes it to be a myth. Well mostly. In the chapter named “The Less than Great Debates”, Plissner gives the historical background on the debates outlining how American network TV channels made them become an essential part of presidential elections, analyses them and brings forth interesting statistics to show that the Great Debates are not so great after all. The debates he analyzes are from 1960 to 1992.
According to Plissner, before debates became an integral part of the election process, the presidential candidates manipulated debates like skilled chessmen. A candidate would avoid having a debate with his opponent if he was confident of victory. Despite suggestions from CBS, NBC, and his opponent Adlai Stevenson’s camp, President Eisenhower, sure of victory in 1952 and 1956, refused going head to head against Stevenson on network TV. President Lyndon Baines Johnson, well ahead of Barry Goldwater, in 1964, “saw no reason to complicate matters”. Chastened by his 1960 experience against John F Kennedy, the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon, avoided debating trailing Democratic candidate Barry Goldwater in 1968 and independent George Wallace in 1972. In 1960, the first year of Presidential debates, both candidates Nixon and Kennedy, buoyed up by their past successes, were amenable on the debates issue. In advocating debates CBS and NBC had their own agenda to grind. Adlai Stevenson was pushing for free time from the networks for presidential candidates as a matter of public service and the Senate Commerce Committee had drawn up a bill to do so. The networks also wanted to divert attention from the embarrassing issue of having deceived the viewers recently, by airing doctored quiz shows.
Most Nixon advisers were against the idea of holding debates with the opponent but Nixon’s own polling showed Kennedy ahead by 10 points. Nixon, always an astute politician, feared that his refusal to confront Kennedy on network TV could be made into a campaign issue. The first debate was held at a CBS studio in Chicago. It was a stunning victory for Kennedy. Nixon appeared emaciated, shaken, and nervous, while Kennedy looked bold and confident. Nixon did fairly well in the next three debates having gained weight on a diet of milkshakes and self-confidence, but still most viewers thought Kennedy had done better in the four debates. The astounding fact, however, is that after decisively winning the four debates Kennedy won the election by only one-sixth of one percent. His lead in a Gallup poll conducted just before the first debate was one percent. Plissner shrewdly asks, “Why then if the impact of the TV debates was anywhere near as dramatic as is claimed did not Kennedy win by a landslide?” If the polls were accurate Kennedy’s lead seemed to have slipped by five-sixths of one percent.
In 1976, the next time presidential candidates got around to debating, the results were no different. President Gerald Ford, unpopular because of his pardon to President Nixon, was trailing candidate Jimmy Carter even before the first debate. Hence he could not refuse debating Carter who himself had been on the national political scene for barely six months. Most polling organisations gave three out of the four debates held to Carter, and a CBS poll after the final debate indicated a three to one victory for Carter in that debate. Even so Carter’s lead shrank from 10 percentage points to two by the Election Day. President Carter mused that there was no way to know who gained more by the debates.
The 1980 Carter-Reagan debate was an exception to the rule. Ronald Reagan won the debate decisively and went on to win the election by eight million votes. The debates were hardly a factor in 1984. Even before the debates began President Reagan was far ahead of Walter Mondale, who represented the party blamed for the faltering economy. Mondale won the first debate but the second one went to Reagan. The elections were a landslide victory for Reagan, a result predicted before the debates.
Michael Dukakis was targeted by reporters to look bad in 1988. However, the debates yet again did not influence the final outcome. Ross Perot gained 20 points after the final debate in 1992, but the real contest was between Bill Clinton and George Bush. Clinton was always way ahead of Bush and did well in the debates too. Once again debates were not a significant factor in 1992 either.
Plissner’s analysis stops at 1992, but other sources, such as the study by political scientists Erikson and Wlezien that analysed elections between 1952 and 2008 reveal that the debates mattered little in 1996, 2004 or the 2008 presidential elections, but the 2000 election was probably an exception. Al Gore’s impromptu cutting into Bush speech time during the first debate, and sighing at Bush comments, is supposed to have contributed to the two to three point post-speech Bush gain in the ratings but the evidence is not conclusive.
It remains to be seen whether the debates will become a significant factor in future presidential elections but the major news channels will certainly continue to advertise them as potential game changers.
The writer is a freelance writer and an electrical engineer.
He can be reached at [email protected]