Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm editor Candice Gibson. Joints Day as Usual by staff
Speaker 1: writer Joshua m clark. Hi. Hi, I had to use
Speaker 1: your formal byline because you have on this John T
Speaker 1: little reporter's hat and it's a typewriter in your lab,
Speaker 1: and you're just like a throwback to the days of
Speaker 1: your when when politics were good and pure and dirty,
Speaker 1: but not as dirty. I've gone on Walter Winchell. In
Speaker 1: other words, I'm getting very excited. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be in any of the presidential debates, but believe me,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be watching them, especially especially the vice
Speaker 1: presidential debate. I'm really looking forward to that one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm very interested to see what happens, because you know,
Speaker 1: earlier this year in the in the presidential primaries, they
Speaker 1: held a debate and Mr Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolis hosted,
Speaker 1: and they were widely criticized for spending like the first
Speaker 1: hour and a half asking just stupid pop culture questions
Speaker 1: of the candidates. So, um, I'm kind of hoping that
Speaker 1: the actual presidential debates are a little more refined, the
Speaker 1: questions are a little more insightful, a little media. You're sure,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm kind of hoping that Mr Jeremy Piven hosts,
Speaker 1: or at the very least does the Ryan Seacrest thing
Speaker 1: of like awe snap or that kind of thing like
Speaker 1: in and out of commercials. I know you're a big
Speaker 1: Jeremy Piven f I'm a huge Jeremy Piven fan. For me,
Speaker 1: no one but the PIVI will do well in my fiance.
Speaker 1: But as a matter of fact, Mr Piven, if you're listening,
Speaker 1: Candice has expressed several times that she would love to
Speaker 1: receive an email from you, So I would strongly recommend
Speaker 1: you do that. It would make her day. But for
Speaker 1: all of you listening who were curious about presidential debates,
Speaker 1: we'll move from Piven to Palin and other things more
Speaker 1: a h Jermaine to that particular topic. I've actually got
Speaker 1: a little legend I want to confirm with you. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I have heard, and I think this is kind
Speaker 1: of a condensed version of it, but basically I heard
Speaker 1: that Richard Nixon lost the nineteen sixty presidential election because
Speaker 1: of a knee injury and it had something to do
Speaker 1: with the debates. Is that is that fact or fiction?
Speaker 1: That's fact? Well, it's sort of a long breadcrumb trail
Speaker 1: of a story. But I think that most of you
Speaker 1: guys know about the very famous televised debates between Nixon
Speaker 1: and Kennedy. Essentially, Nixon went on TV looking like death
Speaker 1: warmed over. He looked under weight and sallow, and he
Speaker 1: wore the same color suit as the backdrop, and it
Speaker 1: was nothing was working for him, nothing, nothing, nothing. And
Speaker 1: then there's JFK who looks amazing as always, as always, tan, fit, smiling, charming,
Speaker 1: the usual. But Nixon went on to lose a presidential
Speaker 1: debate by all accounts of people watching it on TV,
Speaker 1: but people who were listening on the radio to the
Speaker 1: debate thought that he was the winner. What did the
Speaker 1: knee have to do with this? Though? Knee? He had
Speaker 1: banged Disney into a car door a little while before,
Speaker 1: and he'd gotten a staff infection as a result, and
Speaker 1: that's why he felt like death warmed over. Yeah, hence
Speaker 1: the the underweight, underweight body and the salary skin and
Speaker 1: just nothing going right for him. And this was like
Speaker 1: one of the first televised debates, right, the first between
Speaker 1: two party nominated candidates. So you have the Democrat Canada
Speaker 1: and the Republican candidate. And it was on TV nineteen sixties, septembery.
Speaker 1: History in the making. Yeah, they call it the Great Debates.
Speaker 1: Now there are three of them, I believe something like that. So, um,
Speaker 1: you know, presidential debates, as far as I know, um,
Speaker 1: actually were born out of a senatorial debate. They're not
Speaker 1: that old. It was I think Abraham Lincoln who was
Speaker 1: debating a guy named Stephen Douglas for the senatorial seat
Speaker 1: in Illinois, right, And the best part of that is
Speaker 1: that he wasn't even debating him at first. He was
Speaker 1: following Stephen Douglas round on the campaign trail and heckling
Speaker 1: him from the audience. And eventually this sort of mounted
Speaker 1: into what became debates, right, right, They had like a
Speaker 1: three hour debate over the slavery right. And Uh, the
Speaker 1: weird thing is, as I understand, Lincoln didn't debate two
Speaker 1: years later he lost that seat to Douglas. Um, he
Speaker 1: didn't debate two years later at all when he was
Speaker 1: running for president in eighteen sixty, which he won obviously.
Speaker 1: So I guess presidential debates had that first, you know,
Speaker 1: beginning that flash on stage, but didn't really catch on
Speaker 1: until what like the thirties or forties, right, Yeah, back
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty four, I think is when they sort
Speaker 1: of came into the limelight again and people liked the
Speaker 1: idea of presidential debates because it was it was a
Speaker 1: new concept. You know, people knew a lot about the
Speaker 1: candidates with the idea of hearing them square off against
Speaker 1: each other. There there's something really revelatory about hearing someone
Speaker 1: respond to what a colleague is saying, or a political
Speaker 1: foe or ally. You know, it really brings out your
Speaker 1: true thoughts and your true feelings on a topic when
Speaker 1: you're having to speak off the cuff to what someone
Speaker 1: is saying or what someone is asking you. And and
Speaker 1: that was the great thing about debate is that people
Speaker 1: got to see the real truth behind what the candidate said.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just a rehearsed speech. Yeah, it's it's pretty
Speaker 1: much a public service. I mean, if you think about it,
Speaker 1: everything else you know about a candidate is coming out
Speaker 1: of that candidate's mouth. It's rehearsed or it's a press release. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a big pr machine behind Canada. Sure, and and
Speaker 1: at that moment when they're debating their their arrival or
Speaker 1: being asked to follow up question or something, they're having
Speaker 1: to think on their feet and you can really see,
Speaker 1: you know, is this person actually smart? Do they really
Speaker 1: know what they're talking about? It's uh, it's kind of necessary.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, as far as I understand, um,
Speaker 1: that kind of spontaneity is not found in presidential debates anymore.
Speaker 1: Apparently there's this group called the Commission on Presidential Debates
Speaker 1: and they controlled um, not the not the ones in
Speaker 1: the primary anything like that, but the three main presidential
Speaker 1: and vice presidential debates held right before the elections. Um,
Speaker 1: they control those with an iron fist, you know about
Speaker 1: the CPD. Yeah, and you're right, iron fist is the
Speaker 1: right term for it. Everything from the height of the
Speaker 1: podium to the temperature of the room, to which cities
Speaker 1: even get considered to be site for these debates. And
Speaker 1: it's a pretty big deal to be the site of
Speaker 1: a presidential debate. I think there's like a seven thousand
Speaker 1: plus dollar application fee. You have to have enough hotel
Speaker 1: rooms available for a certain thousand number of galass three
Speaker 1: hotel rooms. Yeah, so you have to really petition essentially
Speaker 1: to become a site for one of these, and it
Speaker 1: is a great honor. But I mean the town, you know,
Speaker 1: is just the backdrop to what goes on, and what
Speaker 1: goes on is essentially a very well oiled pr presentation
Speaker 1: of Some people would argue, well, it's all very staged
Speaker 1: and what's more, um originally, uh well, let me back up.
Speaker 1: There's this thing called the communications After nineteen thirty four,
Speaker 1: you've heard of this. There's this thing called the Equal
Speaker 1: Time Provision, which is a clause in this law that
Speaker 1: says that any candidate running for um, you know, the
Speaker 1: presidency or something like that, has to have equal time
Speaker 1: in the media. And this actually came up. Do you
Speaker 1: remember when Fred Thompson was running in the O eight primaries.
Speaker 1: Everybody was a little worried that he may get more
Speaker 1: exposure UM through Law and Order reruns and they were
Speaker 1: talking about having to to not run ones that featured
Speaker 1: him while he was on the campaign trail. He dropped
Speaker 1: out before it got resolved, but that was because of
Speaker 1: the Equal Time Provision, and that used to govern all
Speaker 1: of the debates UM until I think nineteen seventy four
Speaker 1: or something like that. Uh, the ce CE, the Federal
Speaker 1: Communications Commission, came out and said, Okay, we're going to
Speaker 1: We're gonna make a loophole here. We're gonna call presidential
Speaker 1: debates bona fide news events as long as they're hosted
Speaker 1: by a third party. Uh, the equal time provision doesn't
Speaker 1: doesn't hold water any longer for just for debates, you
Speaker 1: know bout that. Yeah, and Nix and I think was
Speaker 1: pretty active and vetoing the equal time provision too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he had pretty sour feelings about his televised
Speaker 1: debates days. Um, he actually did make it to the
Speaker 1: White House in the end, not during the Kennedy debates,
Speaker 1: if he, uh not, just Nixon, Johnson, Jimmy Carter that
Speaker 1: these politicians used to um keep debates from going on
Speaker 1: because of the equal time provision. They said no, then
Speaker 1: they just couldn't hold a debate because the other candidates
Speaker 1: would get more exposure, right and in their eyes, you know,
Speaker 1: saying no to debate, Yeah, you came across looking sort
Speaker 1: of badly, but how being I guess a bad rap
Speaker 1: was better than going on TV and looking like a
Speaker 1: fool or allowing your opponent to look really good, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So so this was kind of manipulated. And then the
Speaker 1: FEC came out and created this loophole so politicians couldn't
Speaker 1: crippled debates or keep debates from going on without them
Speaker 1: any longer. Um. And that third party caveat that they
Speaker 1: introduced was actually filled by the League of Women Voters.
Speaker 1: And these women were serious and you know, women fought
Speaker 1: really hard for suffrage. A lot of lives were lost,
Speaker 1: a lot of people went to prison, and they were
Speaker 1: dead said and determined that they were going to turn
Speaker 1: around this sort of chaotic scene that had become the
Speaker 1: presidential debate and talk about ruling something with an iron fist.
Speaker 1: They were even more stringent than the CPD is today. No,
Speaker 1: definitely they can. They controlled the format, the questions, they
Speaker 1: chose the moderator. I believe they chose the site. But
Speaker 1: the thing is with the League of Women Voters, fairness
Speaker 1: was pairing amount to them, and they actually carried it
Speaker 1: out really well. They were very fair. Um. Anybody who
Speaker 1: was a viable presidential candidate was was invited. Uh, if
Speaker 1: you didn't want to show up, they still held the debate.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter found that out the hard way, and Ronald Reagan,
Speaker 1: who was then governor of California, shows up and just
Speaker 1: blows the television audience away and gets carried into the
Speaker 1: White House. I mean, that wasn't the only factor, but
Speaker 1: that was a big one. So the league um just
Speaker 1: kind of said, you know what, this is about the
Speaker 1: political process. It's not about the parties. Uh, if you
Speaker 1: guys want to join in, bring your best, you know,
Speaker 1: and if if not, then the other guys are gonna
Speaker 1: bring their best and we'll go on without you. And
Speaker 1: that actually kind of irked them, I think, kind of
Speaker 1: irk maybe an understatement, but the Democratic and Republican parties
Speaker 1: eventually took control of debates because they become so powerful, right,
Speaker 1: they drafted a memoranum of understanding between them. This is
Speaker 1: when Ducakas and George H. Bu Bush we're running for office,
Speaker 1: and between the two parties, they decided, we can take
Speaker 1: power back, and we can run debates our way, and
Speaker 1: we can make it that the debates are just between
Speaker 1: the two parties. It just comes down to the Democrats
Speaker 1: and Republicans. And essentially what they were clamoring for was
Speaker 1: a press conference relay where candidates could have questions ahead
Speaker 1: of time to rehearse, and they knew exactly what was
Speaker 1: going to be asked of them, they knew what format
Speaker 1: would be used, and essentially they overtook the l WV
Speaker 1: and they were not happy. They actually called it a
Speaker 1: a fraud on the American voter falling down. They stepped
Speaker 1: back and said, you know, we're not going to have
Speaker 1: any part of this, and I guess the Democrats are
Speaker 1: Republicans were all too happy. That's when the Commissioned Presidential
Speaker 1: Debates was created because they needed that third party still
Speaker 1: to keep debates bona fide, new to the news events.
Speaker 1: But since they were controlling the CPD, they also controlled
Speaker 1: who showed up. Like uh in ross Pero Member ross Pero,
Speaker 1: he uh he had a great showing at a presidential debate,
Speaker 1: so much so that in n the the Democrats and
Speaker 1: Republicans didn't let him come on to the presidential debates.
Speaker 1: He was excluded, and later he tried to sue, but
Speaker 1: he ended up losing that case because the equal time
Speaker 1: provision loophole was there. He he really had no basis
Speaker 1: in in the case, but he's still he wasn't allowed
Speaker 1: to debate in these supposedly fair and open debates because
Speaker 1: the CPD said no, because the Democrats and Republicans told
Speaker 1: it not to. And that's the other thing about the
Speaker 1: CPD that that kind of makes it so nefarious. It
Speaker 1: acts as a shield, a publicity shield, between the American
Speaker 1: voter and the two parties. I think that when Ross
Speaker 1: Perot was not allowed to participate, people were actually pulled
Speaker 1: to see who they blame for that, and only a
Speaker 1: very small number blamed Bush, a very small number blamed Clinton.
Speaker 1: Most of them blamed the CPD has something like or
Speaker 1: something like that. Yeah, So basically you've got this entity
Speaker 1: created did by the two parties to enforce the two
Speaker 1: party system. And this is what we're seeing today, uh
Speaker 1: at presidential debates. And I mean, like the follow up
Speaker 1: question format completely thrown out. Um. The questions are prepared
Speaker 1: for ahead of time. It's like you said, well oiled,
Speaker 1: well rehearsed. I think in a two thousand John Kerry,
Speaker 1: who is just a senator back then, UM complained that
Speaker 1: that the questions that were asked were a little um
Speaker 1: below par. I think he said, you could have grabbed
Speaker 1: ten people off the street who don't know the difference
Speaker 1: between Jerusalem and Georgia, and they would have asked better questions. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know these are not I guess the
Speaker 1: point is is public or presidential debates are no longer
Speaker 1: a public service. It's just like one big, televised, expensive
Speaker 1: press release. But people demand it. You know, they still
Speaker 1: want to see the debate. People still like to watch
Speaker 1: them and see what's going on. And you know, you
Speaker 1: could read a newspaper summary the next day and probably
Speaker 1: glean the same information. But there's something still to be
Speaker 1: fount owned in a candidate's facial expressions or the way
Speaker 1: that the audience responding to the candidate. And another issue
Speaker 1: with presidential debates that's come up is the polls that
Speaker 1: are taken afterward. How accurate are these polls that say, oh,
Speaker 1: I think so and so one the debate, so and
Speaker 1: so is going to win the election. You know, they're
Speaker 1: not always accurate. And now in our modern era, when
Speaker 1: a lot of these are conducted by computer, for instance,
Speaker 1: you have a younger segment of the population casting votes
Speaker 1: in these polls, so you're not having the older segments
Speaker 1: of the population represented. So there's a grave disparity there,
Speaker 1: especially in snap polls, you know, those very quick, immediate
Speaker 1: online polls where you know, they're the people who are
Speaker 1: going to fill them out are a little more web
Speaker 1: savvy than than the people who aren't. So yeah, and
Speaker 1: the other problem is that these polls are so widely
Speaker 1: broadcast they actually influence UM voter impressions of things, you know,
Speaker 1: like who who? Who won the presidential debate. I could
Speaker 1: really say I thought it was a tie, but this
Speaker 1: poll says that this candidate one, So I guess that
Speaker 1: candidate one. So I mean, what's what's the point of polls? Anyway?
Speaker 1: It's a good question, but you know, it's funny. We
Speaker 1: talked about how the web is influencing certain aspects of polls.
Speaker 1: It's also influencing aspects of the debates themselves. Back in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, the big thing was TV, and now
Speaker 1: the big thing is Internet essentially, and all this other
Speaker 1: media things like Twitter, YouTube, even MTV, they've all played parts.
Speaker 1: In the two thousand and eight, they held something with
Speaker 1: my Space. Yeah, I think people could post questions and
Speaker 1: then they were answered. Is that right? Yeah? It was
Speaker 1: real time questions via instant message or email. UM and
Speaker 1: the moderator chose the best ones and asked one candidate
Speaker 1: at a time. It was pretty cool format. I think
Speaker 1: I read and wired that as far as the tech
Speaker 1: communities concerned, the MTV, MySpace UM town hall meetings, they
Speaker 1: weren't actually debate since there's just one candidate there one
Speaker 1: the new Technology UH award I guess for the presidential
Speaker 1: debate so far, The one that fascinated me was the
Speaker 1: one via Twitter. Because in Twitter you can only use
Speaker 1: I think a hundred forty characters for a response, and
Speaker 1: so that really really slims down what's usually a big
Speaker 1: oratorical just cloud of of words and insinuations that candidates
Speaker 1: had to give very direct responses to these questions. So
Speaker 1: who knew Richard Nixon's knee had anything to do with Twitter?
Speaker 1: You know who knew? Can? Oh god, you're so welcome?
Speaker 1: And something else fun that I know. One of my
Speaker 1: very favorite lines from a presidential debate ever dan Quayle
Speaker 1: and Lloyd Benson. Dan Quel compared himself to John Kennedy.
Speaker 1: This is what Lloyd Benson said, I knew Jack Kennedy.
Speaker 1: Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, You're no
Speaker 1: Jack Kennedy to the end of the debate. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that killed Quayle certainly did shot the dunk. There's a
Speaker 1: whole lot mored of know presidential debates, and you can
Speaker 1: find out and how president until debates work on how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Let
Speaker 1: us know what you think, send an email to podcast
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