Historical Perspective on Presidential Debates

[Airborne]

Being fairly new to paying attention to National politics, can one of you grout covered scholars give me a little perspective on Presidential debates?

Here's my frustration: while I have decided who I plan to vote for, I am completely disallusioned by the pattern both Senator Kerry & President Bush seem to be following of never directly answering a question. Both seem to skirt around the questions given them and at best give a tangential, glossed over, sound-bite-optimized answer before launching into what amounts to a pre-meditated statement with no relation to the question posed. While President Bush (whom I support) answered parts of questions, it seemed like every question was answered by weaving or wandering into what he really wanted to talk about. Senator Kerry (whom I don't support) at least looked into the camera and made a black and white committment when asked; after repeating what he was asked to commit to or reject, he too then headed off into his own sound-bite-land. (Okay, rant over)

So my question is, "Has it always been this way or has our political discourse devolved into competing monolouges instead of on-point discussions which deal in fact and the differing interpretations of where to go based upon agreed-to facts?"

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[John Bridge]

Art,

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about the first American politicians, those old-time wierdly dress dudes -- knickers and stockings up to their ass. :)

In those days the candidates themselves did no campaining. It was not considered gentlemanly. Instead they had their cronies do the dirty work for them. So there really were no one-on-one debates. It was mostly carried out in the press and in the various state assembly halls. Things started changing about the time Buchanan was up for the predidency, but still no debate debates.

By the time Lincoln became fairly well known, debates had come into vogue, but the debates were neither the college debate team variety, nor were they anything like the "debates" between Kerry and Bush. Instead, each candidate might speak for an hour or two uninterupted, and the debates would move from town to town.

The most famous of these were the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Lincoln was challenging Steven Douglas for a seat in the U.S. Senate. It is gernerally asknowledged that Lincoln won the debates, but he lost the race and Douglas beat him. Of course, a few years later Lincoln won a far more important office. :)