Basic Info About Presidential Debates
1) Who sponsors the Presidential Debates?
2) Types of Debates – Toughest type
3) What criteria do you have to meet to participate in a
debate?
4) Is a candidate required to participate in a debate?
5) Why Debate?
6) Basics and
historic examples
Basic Info About Presidential Debates
1) Who sponsors the Presidential Debates?
The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD)
was established in 1987 to ensure debates as a
permanent part of every general election.
Primary purpose is to:
Sponsor and produce debates for the United States
presidential and vice presidential candidates
Basic Info About Presidential Debates
2) What criteria do you have to meet to
participate in a debate? ALL 3!
• Constitutionally eligible to be President
– age 35, Natural Born Citizen, Live US 14 years – non consecutive
• Ballot access in enough states to win a majority of
electoral votes (> or = 270)
• National support of > or = 15% of the voters
Basic Info About Presidential Debates
3) Is a candidate required to
participate in a debate?
NO (but if not, may be quite damaging)!
How would you use it
against a Political
Opponent?
Why Debate?
1) National test of a candidate's ability to convey
their message
2) Candidates trailing in the polls or confident in their
abilities have always proposed debates in an effort
to gain an edge over a competitor
For the voters (make or break point) "The debates are part
of just seeing the candidate in action and getting a sense of
him as a person in real time dealing with pressure."
Prior to a debate, the two major campaign
teams and the Commission haggle over the
details, such as:
# of questions,
the format,
the height of the podium,
who will be the moderator,
controlled audience,
location, glasses or bottles of
water
Before the debates con’t
• THEN, the two campaigns agree to a
"memorandum of understanding" over how
this round of debates should be conducted.
– The Commission on Presidential Debates doesn't
sign off on the document
• It is not an official set of campaign guidelines.
– But the commission is largely controlled by
the parties, and it thus they tend to follow
the rules as laid out in such memoranda
Ex: Florida Governor’s
Race Debate (2014)
• Charlie Crist’s broke the agreed
Temperature
ora Psychological?
upon debate
rules by sneaking
fan
into the hall and placing it under
his podium
– Current Fla. Gov. Scott hung out backstage in protest, causing
Crist to get seven solo minutes on stage
• RULE AGREED UPON BY BOTH CANDIDATES - no
electronic devices to be used by the candidates which
Crist’s
• HOWEVER, the campaign coughed up a copy of the
debate agreement after the debate, showing they’d
added the handwritten note: “*with understanding that
the debate hosts will address any temperature issues with
What’s
the big deal?
a fan
if necessary.”
– The temperature on stage at the time of the debate’s start
was 66 degrees.
Candidates PREPARE!
Ex: Election 2004 (Kerry vs. Bush)
• Bush  rehearsals at
his Texas ranch, Camp
David and the White
House
• Kerry Read Bush's
campaign speeches to
find potential lines of
attack
Both candidates held mock sessions, videotaped them to critique and review
*Had fill-ins for the other
candidatehttp://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-09-19-presidential-
debates_x.htm
Let's take a look at the
debates of the 2008 Race
for the White House
•
Participants:
John McCain - Republican
•
Barack Obama - Democrat
First Debate - Fri, Sept. 26th - University of Mississippi - moderator Jim Lehrer; FOCUS foreign policy and national security, but due to the financial crisis, a portion of the
debate was focused on economic issues
– 90 minutes (divided into 9 9-min issue segments, allowing the candidates to discuss selected topics,
answer follow-ups from the moderator and directly address each other
•
Second Debate - Tues, Oct 7th - Belmont University, Nashville Tennessee - moderator
Tom Brokaw - TOWN HALL MEETING FORMAT
– Voters (either present at the debate or via the Internet), posed questions on a topic of their choice
and Moderator would ask follow-up questions
•
Third Debate - Wed, Oct 15th - Hofstra University, New York - moderator Bob Schieffer FOCUS - domestic and foreign policy
– Same as first debate
•
ONE VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE - Thurs, Oct 2nd - Washington University in Missouri moderator Gwen Ifill - FOCUS - foreign and domestic topics
• MAINLY TALK UP THEIR RUNNING MATE
2008 Debates - # of Viewers
First presidential debate
• Audience: 52.4 million viewers
Second presidential debate
• Audience: 63.2 million viewers
Third presidential debate
• Audience: 56.5 million viewers
Vice presidential debate
Most-watched viceAudience:
69.9 million
presidential debate
in history!
viewers
Biden (D)
Palin (R)
Third Party Candidates left in the cold
Had 2 of their own debates • 1) Oct 15th Columbia University
• 2) Oct 23rd Washington D.C.
Participating Candidates included:
• Ralph Nader (Independent)
• Chuck Baldwin (Constitution)
• Cynthia Nixon (Green Party)
• **Another candidate Bob Barr of Libertarian Party
invited - but declined to participate (schedule conflicts)
Toughest Type - The Town Hall Debate
• Def: The questions
(pre-screened) come
from uncommitted
voters (variety of socioeconomic, racial and
political backgrounds).
• The candidates can
sometimes face curve
balls
• As compared to the
Formal Debates:
– When political reporters
are posing the questions,
the candidates usually
have a good idea what to
expect
*Like our debate Thursday
Town Hall Format con’t
• Roughly 12 audience
members out of about 80
will get to ask questions
– Prescreened (candidates have an idea)
• Questioners who deviate
from the question they
said they would ask run
the risk of having their
microphones cut off – Unlikely that such a step
would be taken unless the
question is clearly out of
bounds.
Advantage – Voters can see
their candidates think on
their feet
*more natural
*more personal connection
*how the candidate acts
under pressure
1992 – Oops moment – Town Hall
• George H.W. Bush was the first to
respond to a question about how
the national debt has affected the
candidates personally.
– The questioner pressed the wealthy
president to talk about his own
experience, prompting him to
respond at one point, "are you
suggesting that if somebody has
means, that the national debt
doesn't affect them?
– “I'm not sure I get it." Mr. Bush said
(awkward moment)
It was one of those moments that
gave rise to the notion that Mr.
And it only got worse:
Clinton was particularly good at
feeling the pain of the American
• When Mr. Bush finished, Bill Clinton
approached the woman and asked, "tell people.
me how it's affected you again?"
Mr. Bush, meanwhile,
• He then said, in part, "in my state, when
was caught by the
people lose their jobs, there's a good
chance I'll know them by their names.“ cameras checking his
watch.
Be careful what you say and how you
react on Thursday
• Tuesday (after speeches)
NOW – PRACTICE YOUR
and Wednesday –
SPEECHES
CAMPAIGN WORK
2 MINS!
• Will have questions to
prepare for the debate
REMEMBER THINGS TO LOOK
FOR/ BE CAREFUL OF!
• Type out answers
• Readable (don’t fumble HELP THEM CAMPAIGN TEAM
around)
PR PERSON – WHAT IS HE
WEARING?