0:00

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History

0:02

Class from how Stuff Works dot com.

0:12

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm editor

0:14

Candice Gibson. Joints Day as Usual by

0:16

staff writer Joshua m clark.

0:18

Hi. Hi, I had to use your formal

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byline because you have on this John T

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little reporter's hat and it's

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a typewriter in your lab, and you're

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just like a throwback to the days of your

0:30

when when politics were good and pure

0:32

and dirty, but not as dirty.

0:34

I've gone on Walter Winchell. In other words,

0:36

I'm getting very excited. I'm not going to

0:38

be in any of the presidential debates, but believe

0:41

me, I'm going to be watching them,

0:43

especially especially the vice

0:45

presidential debate. I'm really looking

0:47

forward to that one. Yeah, I'm very

0:49

interested to see what happens, because

0:52

you know, earlier this year in the in the

0:54

presidential primaries, they held a debate

0:56

and Mr Charlie Gibson and

0:58

George Stephanopolis hosted, and they

1:00

were widely criticized for spending

1:02

like the first hour and a half

1:05

asking just stupid pop culture

1:08

questions of the candidates. So, um,

1:10

I'm kind of hoping that the actual presidential

1:13

debates are a little more

1:15

refined, the questions are a little more

1:18

insightful, a little

1:20

media. You're sure, you know, I'm kind of

1:22

hoping that Mr Jeremy Piven

1:25

hosts, or at the very least does the Ryan

1:27

Seacrest thing of like awe snap

1:29

or that kind of thing like in and out of commercials.

1:32

I know you're a big Jeremy Piven f I'm a huge

1:34

Jeremy Piven fan. For me,

1:37

no one but the PIVI will do well in my fiance.

1:39

But as a matter of fact, Mr Piven, if

1:41

you're listening, Candice has expressed several times

1:44

that she would love to receive an email from

1:46

you, So I would strongly

1:48

recommend you do that. It would make her day. But

1:50

for all of you listening who were curious about presidential

1:53

debates, we'll move from Piven to Palin

1:55

and other things more a h

1:59

Jermaine to that particular topic.

2:01

I've actually got a little legend

2:03

I want to confirm with you. Okay,

2:06

so I have heard, and I

2:08

think this is kind of a condensed version of

2:10

it, but basically I heard that Richard

2:12

Nixon lost the

2:14

nineteen sixty presidential election

2:17

because of a knee injury and it had

2:19

something to do with the debates. Is that is that

2:22

fact or fiction? That's fact?

2:25

Well, it's sort of a long

2:27

breadcrumb trail of a story. But I

2:29

think that most of you guys know about the very

2:31

famous televised debates

2:33

between Nixon and Kennedy. Essentially,

2:35

Nixon went on TV looking like death

2:38

warmed over. He looked

2:40

under weight and sallow, and he

2:42

wore the same color suit as the

2:44

backdrop, and it was nothing was working

2:46

for him, nothing, nothing, nothing. And then there's JFK

2:49

who looks amazing as always, as

2:52

always, tan, fit, smiling,

2:54

charming, the usual. But Nixon

2:57

went on to lose a

3:00

presidential debate by all accounts of

3:02

people watching it on TV, but people who were

3:04

listening on the radio to the debate thought that he

3:06

was the winner. What did the knee have to do with this?

3:08

Though? Knee? He had banged Disney

3:10

into a car door a little while before, and

3:13

he'd gotten a staff infection as a result,

3:15

and that's why he felt like death warmed over.

3:17

Yeah, hence the the underweight, underweight

3:21

body and the salary skin and just nothing

3:23

going right for him. And this was

3:25

like one of the first televised debates,

3:28

right, the first between two party

3:30

nominated candidates. So you have the Democrat

3:33

Canada and the Republican candidate. And

3:35

it was on TV nineteen sixties, septembery.

3:38

History in the making. Yeah, they call it the Great

3:40

Debates. Now there are three of them, I believe

3:42

something like that. So, um,

3:44

you know, presidential debates, as far as I know,

3:47

um, actually were born out of a senatorial

3:50

debate. They're not that old. It was

3:52

I think Abraham Lincoln who

3:54

was debating a guy named Stephen Douglas

3:57

for the senatorial seat in Illinois, right,

4:00

And the best part of that is that he

4:02

wasn't even debating him at first. He was

4:04

following Stephen Douglas round on the campaign

4:06

trail and heckling him from the audience.

4:09

And eventually this sort of mounted

4:12

into what became debates, right,

4:14

right, They had like a three hour debate over

4:17

the slavery right.

4:20

And Uh, the weird thing is, as

4:22

I understand, Lincoln didn't

4:25

debate two years later he lost that

4:27

seat to Douglas. Um, he didn't

4:29

debate two years later at all when

4:31

he was running for president in eighteen sixty,

4:33

which he won obviously. So

4:35

I guess presidential debates had that first, you

4:37

know, beginning that flash on stage,

4:40

but didn't really catch on until

4:42

what like the thirties or forties, right,

4:45

Yeah, back in nineteen thirty four, I think

4:47

is when they sort of came into the limelight again

4:49

and people liked the idea of presidential debates

4:52

because it was it was a new

4:54

concept. You know, people knew a lot about

4:56

the candidates with the idea of hearing them square

4:59

off against each other. There there's something

5:01

really revelatory about

5:03

hearing someone respond to

5:05

what a colleague is saying,

5:08

or a political foe or ally. You know,

5:10

it really brings out your

5:12

true thoughts and your true feelings on a topic

5:14

when you're having to speak off the cuff to what someone

5:16

is saying or what someone is asking

5:19

you. And and that was the great thing about debate

5:21

is that people got to see the

5:24

real truth behind what the candidate

5:26

said. It wasn't just a rehearsed speech. Yeah,

5:28

it's it's pretty much a public service. I mean,

5:30

if you think about it, everything else you know

5:32

about a candidate is coming out of that candidate's

5:35

mouth. It's rehearsed or it's a press

5:37

release. Yeah, there's a big pr machine behind

5:39

Canada. Sure, and and at

5:41

that moment when they're debating their their

5:44

arrival or being asked to follow

5:46

up question or something, they're having to think on their feet

5:48

and you can really see, you know, is this person

5:50

actually smart? Do they really know what they're talking

5:52

about? It's uh, it's kind

5:55

of necessary. But the thing is,

5:57

as far as I understand, um,

6:00

that kind of spontaneity is not

6:02

found in presidential debates anymore.

6:05

Apparently there's this group called the

6:07

Commission on Presidential Debates and

6:09

they controlled um, not

6:12

the not the ones in the primary anything like that, but

6:14

the three main presidential

6:16

and vice presidential debates held right before

6:18

the elections. Um, they control

6:20

those with an iron fist, you know about the CPD.

6:23

Yeah, and you're right, iron fist is the right

6:25

term for it. Everything from the height of the podium

6:27

to the temperature of the room, to which

6:30

cities even get considered to

6:32

be site for these debates. And it's a pretty

6:34

big deal to be the site of a presidential

6:37

debate. I think there's like a seven thousand

6:39

plus dollar application fee. You

6:41

have to have enough hotel rooms available

6:44

for a certain thousand number of galass

6:46

three hotel rooms. Yeah, so

6:49

you have to really petition essentially

6:51

to become a site for one of these, and it

6:54

is a great honor. But I mean

6:56

the town, you know, is just the backdrop to

6:58

what goes on, and what goes on is

7:00

essentially a very well oiled

7:03

pr presentation of Some people would

7:05

argue, well, it's all very staged and what's more,

7:08

um originally, uh well,

7:10

let me back up. There's this thing called the communications

7:13

After nineteen thirty four, you've heard of this. There's

7:15

this thing called the Equal Time Provision,

7:18

which is a clause in this law that

7:20

says that any candidate running for

7:23

um, you know, the presidency or something

7:26

like that, has to have equal

7:28

time in the media. And this actually

7:30

came up. Do you remember when Fred Thompson

7:32

was running in the O eight primaries.

7:35

Everybody was a little worried that he may get

7:37

more exposure UM through

7:40

Law and Order reruns and they were talking

7:42

about having to to not run ones

7:44

that featured him while he was on

7:46

the campaign trail. He dropped out before

7:48

it got resolved, but that was because of the

7:50

Equal Time Provision, and that used

7:52

to govern all of the debates UM

7:55

until I think nineteen seventy

7:57

four or something like that. Uh, the ce

8:00

CE, the Federal Communications Commission, came

8:02

out and said, Okay, we're

8:04

going to We're gonna make a loophole here.

8:07

We're gonna call presidential

8:09

debates bona fide news

8:12

events as long as they're hosted

8:14

by a third party. Uh, the equal

8:16

time provision doesn't doesn't

8:18

hold water any longer for just

8:21

for debates, you know bout that. Yeah,

8:23

and Nix and I think was pretty active and vetoing

8:26

the equal time provision too. Yeah, I think

8:28

he had pretty sour feelings about his

8:30

televised debates days. Um, he actually

8:33

did make it to the White House in the end, not

8:35

during the Kennedy debates, if he,

8:37

uh not, just Nixon, Johnson, Jimmy

8:40

Carter that these politicians

8:42

used to um keep debates from going

8:45

on because of the equal time provision. They

8:47

said no, then they just couldn't hold a debate

8:49

because the other candidates would get more exposure,

8:52

right and in their eyes, you know,

8:54

saying no to debate, Yeah, you came across

8:57

looking sort of badly, but how

9:00

being I guess a bad rap was better

9:02

than going on TV and looking like a fool

9:04

or allowing your opponent to look really good,

9:07

right. Yeah, So so this was kind

9:09

of manipulated. And then the FEC came out

9:11

and created this loophole so politicians

9:13

couldn't crippled debates or keep

9:16

debates from going on without them any longer.

9:18

Um. And that third party

9:21

caveat that they introduced was

9:23

actually filled by the League of Women Voters.

9:25

And these women were serious

9:28

and you know, women fought really

9:30

hard for suffrage. A lot of lives were lost,

9:32

a lot of people went to prison, and they

9:34

were dead said and determined that they

9:36

were going to turn around this sort of chaotic

9:39

scene that had become the presidential debate

9:42

and talk about ruling something with an iron

9:44

fist. They were even more stringent

9:46

than the CPD is today. No, definitely

9:48

they can. They controlled the

9:50

format, the questions, they

9:52

chose the moderator. I believe

9:54

they chose the site. But the thing is with the

9:56

League of Women Voters, fairness

9:59

was pairing amount to them, and they actually

10:01

carried it out really well. They were very fair.

10:04

Um. Anybody who was a viable

10:06

presidential candidate was was invited.

10:09

Uh, if you didn't want to show up, they still held

10:11

the debate. Jimmy Carter found that out the hard

10:13

way, and Ronald Reagan,

10:15

who was then governor of California, shows

10:17

up and just blows the television

10:20

audience away and gets carried into

10:22

the White House. I mean, that wasn't the only

10:24

factor, but that was a big one. So

10:26

the league um just kind of said, you know what,

10:28

this is about the political process.

10:31

It's not about the parties. Uh,

10:33

if you guys want to join in, bring

10:35

your best, you know, and if if not,

10:38

then the other guys are gonna bring their best

10:40

and we'll go on without you. And that actually

10:42

kind of irked them, I think,

10:45

kind of irk maybe an understatement,

10:47

but the Democratic and Republican parties

10:49

eventually took control of

10:51

debates because they become so powerful, right,

10:54

they drafted a memoranum of understanding

10:56

between them. This is when Ducakas and

10:59

George H. Bu Bush we're running for office,

11:01

and between the two parties, they decided,

11:04

we can take power back, and we can run

11:06

debates our way, and we

11:08

can make it that the debates are just between the two

11:10

parties. It just comes down to the Democrats and Republicans.

11:13

And essentially what they were clamoring

11:16

for was a

11:18

press conference relay where candidates

11:20

could have questions ahead of time to rehearse,

11:22

and they knew exactly what was going to be

11:24

asked of them, they knew what format would be used,

11:27

and essentially they overtook the l

11:29

WV and they were not happy.

11:31

They actually called it a a fraud on the

11:33

American voter falling down.

11:36

They stepped back and said, you know, we're not going to have

11:38

any part of this, and I guess the Democrats

11:40

are Republicans were all too happy. That's when the

11:43

Commissioned Presidential Debates was

11:45

created because they needed that third party

11:48

still to keep debates bona fide, new to the news

11:50

events. But since they were controlling

11:52

the CPD, they also controlled

11:54

who showed up. Like uh in ross

11:58

Pero Member ross Pero, he uh

12:00

he had a great showing at a presidential

12:03

debate, so much so that

12:05

in n the the

12:08

Democrats and Republicans didn't let him come on

12:10

to the presidential debates. He was excluded, and

12:12

later he tried to sue, but he ended up losing

12:14

that case because the equal time provision

12:16

loophole was there. He he really had no basis

12:19

in in the case, but he's still he

12:22

wasn't allowed to debate in these supposedly

12:25

fair and open debates because

12:27

the CPD said no, because the Democrats

12:30

and Republicans told it not to.

12:32

And that's the other thing about the CPD

12:34

that that kind of makes it so nefarious.

12:36

It acts as a shield, a publicity

12:39

shield, between the American voter

12:41

and the two parties. I think that

12:43

when Ross Perot was not allowed to participate,

12:46

people were actually pulled to see who

12:48

they blame for that, and only a very small

12:50

number blamed Bush, a very small number blamed

12:52

Clinton. Most of them blamed the CPD

12:55

has something like or something like that. Yeah,

12:57

So basically you've got this entity created

13:00

did by the two parties to enforce the

13:02

two party system. And this is what we're

13:04

seeing today, uh at presidential

13:06

debates. And I mean, like the follow up question

13:09

format completely thrown out. Um.

13:11

The questions are prepared for ahead

13:13

of time. It's like you said, well oiled,

13:16

well rehearsed. I think in a two

13:18

thousand John Kerry, who is just a senator

13:20

back then, UM complained that

13:23

that the questions that were asked were a little

13:26

um below par. I think he said,

13:28

you could have grabbed ten people off

13:30

the street who don't know the difference between Jerusalem

13:32

and Georgia, and they would have asked better questions.

13:36

So, I mean, you know these are not I

13:38

guess the point is is public

13:40

or presidential debates are no longer a public

13:42

service. It's just like one big, televised,

13:45

expensive press release. But

13:48

people demand it. You know, they still want to see

13:50

the debate. People still like to watch them and see

13:52

what's going on. And you know, you could read a newspaper

13:54

summary the next day and probably glean the

13:57

same information. But there's something still

13:59

to be fount owned in a candidate's

14:01

facial expressions or the way that the audience

14:04

responding to the candidate. And another

14:06

issue with presidential debates that's come up

14:09

is the polls that are taken afterward. How

14:11

accurate are these polls that say,

14:13

oh, I think so and so one the debate,

14:16

so and so is going to win the election. You know, they're

14:18

not always accurate. And now

14:20

in our modern era, when a lot of these are conducted

14:23

by computer, for instance, you

14:25

have a younger segment of the population

14:28

casting votes in these polls, so you're

14:30

not having the older segments of the population represented.

14:32

So there's a grave disparity there, especially

14:35

in snap polls, you know, those very

14:37

quick, immediate online polls

14:39

where you know, they're the people

14:41

who are going to fill them out are a little more web

14:44

savvy than than the people who aren't. So

14:46

yeah, and the other problem is that these

14:48

polls are so widely broadcast they

14:50

actually influence UM voter

14:53

impressions of things, you know, like who

14:55

who? Who won the presidential

14:58

debate. I could really

15:00

say I thought it was a tie, but this poll

15:02

says that this candidate one, So I guess that candidate

15:04

one. So I mean, what's what's the point of

15:06

polls? Anyway? It's a good question, but

15:09

you know, it's funny. We talked about how the

15:11

web is influencing certain aspects

15:14

of polls. It's also influencing aspects

15:16

of the debates themselves. Back in the nineteen

15:18

sixties, the big thing was TV, and

15:20

now the big thing is Internet essentially, and all this

15:23

other media things like Twitter, YouTube,

15:26

even MTV, they've all played parts. In the

15:28

two thousand and eight, they held something with my

15:30

Space. Yeah, I think people

15:32

could post questions and then they were answered. Is that right?

15:35

Yeah? It was real time questions via instant

15:37

message or email. UM

15:39

and the moderator chose the

15:41

best ones and asked one candidate

15:43

at a time. It was pretty cool

15:46

format. I think I read and wired that as

15:48

far as the tech communities concerned, the MTV,

15:51

MySpace UM town hall meetings,

15:53

they weren't actually debate since there's just one candidate

15:56

there one the new

15:58

Technology UH award

16:00

I guess for the presidential debate so far,

16:03

The one that fascinated me was the one via

16:05

Twitter. Because in Twitter you can only use I think

16:07

a hundred forty characters for a

16:09

response, and so that really

16:11

really slims down what's usually

16:14

a big oratorical just cloud

16:17

of of words and insinuations

16:19

that candidates had to give very direct responses

16:22

to these questions. So who knew Richard

16:24

Nixon's knee had anything to do with Twitter?

16:26

You know who knew? Can? Oh god,

16:29

you're so welcome? And something else fun

16:32

that I know. One of my very favorite

16:34

lines from a presidential debate ever dan

16:37

Quayle and Lloyd Benson. Dan

16:39

Quel compared himself to John Kennedy. This

16:42

is what Lloyd Benson said, I knew

16:44

Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend

16:46

of mine. Senator, You're no Jack

16:48

Kennedy to the end of the debate.

16:51

Yeah, and that killed Quayle certainly

16:53

did shot the dunk. There's

16:56

a whole lot mored of know presidential

16:58

debates, and you can find out and how president until

17:00

debates work on how stuff works dot

17:02

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