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How Presidential Debates Work · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
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Speaker 1: one of the Panted Girls. It turns out, but do
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Speaker 1: you remember the Panted Girls? Don't you want that song? Yeah?
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Speaker 1: Don't you want to? Don't you want to? Something? And
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Speaker 1: they were almost like the fruit of the Loom guys.
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Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, that possibly remarried. Yeah, it'd
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Speaker 1: be an interesting uh offspring. That's what goes on in
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Speaker 1: television in my head. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm drinking a
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Speaker 1: fan on Orange. This is why I brought it up. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I have one of these couple of times a month.
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Speaker 1: That's my indulgence. That's your indulgence. Well, that's that's my
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Speaker 1: work indulgence. I got you. Okay, that's good. It's good.
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Speaker 1: You gotta separate work life from home, like chuckers, Um,
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Speaker 1: are you happy? I am? Okay? Are you ready to start? Yeah?
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Speaker 1: This canna be a good one, and and it's timely,
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Speaker 1: which is always nice. Yeah, because you know that the
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Speaker 1: um the debates are going on right now. The presidential
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Speaker 1: debates are going on right now. Yeah, the primary debates
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Speaker 1: with the presidential debates. Uh yeah, but they're not official,
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Speaker 1: are they. Well, we'll get to that. I guess, well
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Speaker 1: that was my whole thing. Uh So have you been
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Speaker 1: watching them at all? I've watched a few of the
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Speaker 1: Republican debates. I find it very entertaining and fun to watch.
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Speaker 1: It is a amazing how the horse race is just
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Speaker 1: the best sports metaphor analogy for these debates overall. But
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Speaker 1: not just like a horse race, like the kind of
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Speaker 1: like the tin horses like at the carnivals like that.
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Speaker 1: Because Herman Kane all edged forward with his plan and
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Speaker 1: then um mprs like, have you really heard about this?
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Speaker 1: This nine and nine plan? Let's get into it. Rman
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Speaker 1: Kids just kind of hangs his head and goes back
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Speaker 1: a little bit. Romney is, you know, positioning forward and
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Speaker 1: backward at sure? Um, but the the I was looking
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Speaker 1: on Google News for something to open this up with,
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Speaker 1: and I mean that was about all I came up with.
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Speaker 1: But um, everywhere everywhere you turn, everywhere you look, these
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Speaker 1: are called presidential debates, when in fact they are not
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Speaker 1: presidential debates. They're GOP primary debates, and uh, they're certainly
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Speaker 1: not official presidential debates, which can only be carried out
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Speaker 1: by one group called the Commission for Presidential Debates, which
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Speaker 1: we'll get to the bottom of in this Have you
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Speaker 1: seen the Saturday Night Live skit on the GOP debates
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Speaker 1: thus far? It's pretty good, Like, you know how I
2:46
Speaker 1: feel sorry for like some of these candidates that just
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Speaker 1: are clearly shoved to the outside by the rules and
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Speaker 1: they're like Paul, yeah, loo, Well that was the joke.
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Speaker 1: It showed you know, Romney and then Caine and Perry
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Speaker 1: and I think I think Backman was in there in
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Speaker 1: the main room, and then it showed like a side
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Speaker 1: room where they went to h two other candidates. I
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Speaker 1: can't remember it, maybe so yeah, Santorm, Santorm Huntsman and
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Speaker 1: actually showed Santorm in it in a dance club, and
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Speaker 1: then it showed Ron Paul. And then it showed Ron
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Speaker 1: Paul through like a surveillance camera in the parking deck
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Speaker 1: and he was just standing there in the parking deckline himself.
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Speaker 1: So it is very representative of how these things kind
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Speaker 1: of go down sometimes. It's clear that some of these
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Speaker 1: candidates just like you might as well not even show up. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: but good from Paul because he does keep showing up
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Speaker 1: no matter what, and they joke about it often. Um.
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Speaker 1: But but the the idea that a candidate cannot be
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Speaker 1: treated fairly in these it's just kind of mind blowing
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Speaker 1: to me. Um. But that's not even the official debates,
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Speaker 1: where it's pretty much like written down that you can
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Speaker 1: mistreat candidates that are Republican or Democrats. And so you're
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Speaker 1: a big debater, you're in debate club. Are you familiar
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Speaker 1: with you were your blazer all the time. We didn't
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Speaker 1: even have that at my school. I don't think we
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Speaker 1: had it at my school any But are you familiar
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Speaker 1: with the history of debates in America? Presidential debates in America?
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Speaker 1: I am, now, are you? Yeah? So what what is
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Speaker 1: it harken back to? Uh? Well, if you want to
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Speaker 1: go back to the beginning, that seems to be where
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Speaker 1: you were leading me. Um. It all sort of started
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Speaker 1: out in eighty eight when a young buck named Abe
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Speaker 1: Lincoln was running for a senator against Stephen Douglas, and
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Speaker 1: he had a little habit of of following Douglas around
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Speaker 1: on the campaign trail. And during his speeches would sort
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Speaker 1: of heckle him from the audience. Yeah, and they're like, well,
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Speaker 1: we might as old debate since you're here, right, And
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Speaker 1: he would also so Douglas was just like, I'm not
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Speaker 1: talking to you, what are you talking about? So Lincoln
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Speaker 1: would also just follow him, stop by stop in in
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Speaker 1: Douglas's wake and be like, oh, you just heard from Douglas.
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Speaker 1: Here's what I think about. Sort of a Rebut so
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Speaker 1: finally Douglas agreed to it, which was pretty groundbreaking. Um.
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Speaker 1: And they had a series of I think like seven debates. Um.
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Speaker 1: It was about the existence of slavery. Douglas was pro
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Speaker 1: divided country, you know, slave states in free states. Uh.
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Speaker 1: And Lincoln was like, this country can't survive like that.
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Speaker 1: And Lincoln lost that election. Um. And actually when he
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Speaker 1: ran for president in eighteen sixty, he didn't debate at all.
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Speaker 1: But that was the beginning of presidential debates. There was
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Speaker 1: no moderator, there was no there's no format other than
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Speaker 1: these two guys standing there debating one another for three hours.
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Speaker 1: There was no TV, there was no Anderson Cooper. But
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Speaker 1: that was the beginning of presidential debates in America. Out
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Speaker 1: of a senate race, no less out of a senate race,
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Speaker 1: and then it was took a long hiatus, fifteen election
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Speaker 1: cycles until nineteen when there was an actual presidential debate
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Speaker 1: on the radio between Republican primary connectors Dewey and Stassin,
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Speaker 1: and that got big ratings. I think you have between
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Speaker 1: forty and eighty million people listen to this, which was
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Speaker 1: over a hot topic of the day, which was communism.
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Speaker 1: Outlong communism, yeah, yeah, certainly not endorsing it. No, it
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Speaker 1: was like, how do you feel about communism, presidential candidate?
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Speaker 1: You like it? Um? And then four years later there's
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Speaker 1: a pretty groundbreaking um debate hosted by the League of
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Speaker 1: Women Voters, who would become huge in debates later on,
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Speaker 1: but this was their first foray and it was a
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Speaker 1: big one. Yeah. I didn't realize how involved they were.
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Speaker 1: Was pretty cool. Yeah, that is cool. Um. They the
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Speaker 1: League of Women Voters in two hosted a televised debate,
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Speaker 1: the first televised debate ever, and it featured all of
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Speaker 1: the candidates in both parties and all parties for president.
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Speaker 1: It's like, uh, what they call that in pro wrestling
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Speaker 1: battle royale? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is in
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Speaker 1: a cage. I think probably sometimes not always. Um, that's
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Speaker 1: how I pictured this debate though, Yeah, and a lot
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Speaker 1: of a lot of talking and murmuring. It was probably
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Speaker 1: very loud debate, you know. Um, But the League of
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Speaker 1: Women Voters hosted this and then kind of went back
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Speaker 1: out of the limelight again, and debates did as well
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Speaker 1: until the Great Debate, right, big b big gig gig.
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Speaker 1: But how did I get that? Yeah, you're talking about
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Speaker 1: Kennedy Nixon in nineteen sixty and this one was very
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Speaker 1: famous because Nixon was in poor health. He had a
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Speaker 1: staff infection, He's not feeling well. Apparently his gray suit
7:44
Speaker 1: blended into the background, making him look even more wan
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Speaker 1: and Kennedy rolled in there like all sunny California handsome.
7:51
Speaker 1: I just you know, I met up with Marilyn Monroe. Look,
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Speaker 1: and people are like, hey, this guy looks great. Yeah. Um.
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Speaker 1: And it was this is the first time to the
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Speaker 1: two party nominated candidates or nominees um were debated one another,
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Speaker 1: just the two yeah. Um. And it was televised debate
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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty and um, yeah, and uh it was the
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Speaker 1: It basically established televised presidential debates as a force to
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Speaker 1: be reckoned with in American politics because a poll of
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Speaker 1: radio listeners, they're just tens and tens of millions of
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Speaker 1: people either listen to it on the radio or watch
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Speaker 1: it on TV. Um and a poll of radio listeners
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Speaker 1: found that a majority thought Nixon one. Uh. A poll
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Speaker 1: of television viewers found that Kennedy one in their opinion. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: And it was largely because now there were aesthetics involved.
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Speaker 1: It wasn't just you know, talkies, you know, squawking out
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Speaker 1: of a box, like you could see what the person
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Speaker 1: looked like, and if you look terribly like Nixon did,
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Speaker 1: you were going to lose. And this also it led
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Speaker 1: to what maybe your best sentence in the history of
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Speaker 1: your writing here what By the time the twenty century
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Speaker 1: rolled around, they bore about the same resemblance to that
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Speaker 1: first televised debate in nineteen sixty as the game show
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Speaker 1: in the movie The Running Man bears to you bet
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Speaker 1: your life like that. I was delighted. I read that,
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Speaker 1: and it's like all that chuck like that. It's fantastic.
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Speaker 1: But you're right on the money with that. Yeah. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: so um so nineteen sixty changes everything. The great debate
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Speaker 1: that from that point on Um. Probably the thing that
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Speaker 1: changed the most was the public came to expect debates.
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Speaker 1: So now there's pressure on candidates. Yeah. Um, but there's
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Speaker 1: this thing that candidates could use to their advantage. Um,
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Speaker 1: from the Communications Act in nineteen thirty four that established
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Speaker 1: the FCC. And in that Communications Act was this thing
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Speaker 1: called the Equal Time Provision. And the equal Time Provision said,
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Speaker 1: if you give media exposure to a bona fide a
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Speaker 1: presidential candidate, you have to give the same amount of
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Speaker 1: exposure to that same to to his rivals in the
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Speaker 1: in the election. Right. Yeah, And that meant that you
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Speaker 1: could if you said I'm not going to come to
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Speaker 1: this debate, that pretty much canceled the debate. Yeah, because
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Speaker 1: you couldn't just let that person have the stage. It
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Speaker 1: it disqualified them. The equal time equal Time Provision. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and it's like it probably didn't look great to not debate,
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Speaker 1: but it looked better than going on a debate in
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Speaker 1: getting your butt handed to you on TV, as Nixon
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Speaker 1: did again and again and lost that nine election largely
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Speaker 1: because of that. Those debates with JFK, the televised versions
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Speaker 1: of him at least and yeah, you get bad press
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Speaker 1: for a news cycler too in the newspaper that only
10:53
Speaker 1: you know hoarders keep um, but on television that makes
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Speaker 1: a really big impression. So yeah, Nixon himself used his
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Speaker 1: presidential veto power to keep the FEC from repealing the
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Speaker 1: equal time provision so that candidates couldn't do that any longer,
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Speaker 1: so he could keep dodging debates whenever he wanted to. Exactly.
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Speaker 1: That's why they call him tricky dick. It is right
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Speaker 1: one reason, so that kind of you know, in the
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Speaker 1: sixties and seventies, debates were in bad shape until the
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Speaker 1: l w V leg of Women Voters stepped back in
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Speaker 1: and said, you know what, we're gonna we need to
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Speaker 1: clean up this thing. And we are women here us
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Speaker 1: roar right, and let's give a little background on them.
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Speaker 1: They were born out of the suffrage movement. League of
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Speaker 1: Women Voters was because prior to the i think the
11:44
Speaker 1: nineteenth Amendment and the which was past the n um,
11:50
Speaker 1: you didn't have women voters. So right when the the
11:55
Speaker 1: twentie Amendment or the nineteenth Amendment past the um, all
11:59
Speaker 1: of a sudden you did it. So the Suffrage movement
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Speaker 1: translated to the League of Women Voters and said Okay,
12:03
Speaker 1: I'll go forth and start shaping public policy through your votes. Right,
12:08
Speaker 1: so ya, League of Women Voters stepping in to take
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Speaker 1: care of business and make sure these things go off
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Speaker 1: in a fair way. Yeah, because they were just getting
12:15
Speaker 1: hammered anyway they could. But it wasn't just the legal
12:17
Speaker 1: women voters. It was the SEC had a ruling as
12:20
Speaker 1: well that allowed entree for the League of Women Voters
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Speaker 1: to step in. Was that when they declared it a
12:27
Speaker 1: debate a bona fide news event. Yeah, and so they said,
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Speaker 1: there's a news event. If you hosted a third party
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Speaker 1: host it, then we have an exemption for the equal
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Speaker 1: time provision all of a sudden, which means now you
12:38
Speaker 1: have to debate. The debate goes on without you. Well, yeah,
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Speaker 1: you don't have to debate, but you look really bad
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Speaker 1: if you're not showing up right like Um Carter did.
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Speaker 1: Carter refused to debate um Reagan and Anderson and John
12:49
Speaker 1: Anderson I think his name was who is an independent candidate? Um?
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Speaker 1: And so Reagan was like, oh, I'll do it, and
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Speaker 1: Anderson was like, I'll do it, and they debated without Carter.
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Speaker 1: That perhaps lost the election for m and then among
13:01
Speaker 1: was a contributing factor. Any other things a contributing fact. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I would say the oil embargo, UM, the the loss
13:09
Speaker 1: of Delta force, seeking out the Iran hostages. There are
13:14
Speaker 1: a lot of things going against Carter. He's done his
13:16
Speaker 1: best work since then, and oh yeah, he's a statesman.
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Speaker 1: So the the LVW, they took the reins from seventy
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Speaker 1: six to eighty four because they stepped in is that
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Speaker 1: neutral party that was needed to fulfill that sec ruling.
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Speaker 1: So they said, we need a good format. We need
13:31
Speaker 1: to split these formats into categories based on the types
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Speaker 1: of are not the types, but how the questions are asked.
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Speaker 1: And they used an open format which allowed follow up
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Speaker 1: questions among the candidates, which was really a big deal
13:45
Speaker 1: because you can't use your rehearsed. I mean, you can
13:48
Speaker 1: do it as much as you can, but you can
13:49
Speaker 1: also get caught off guard and get that great spontaneity
13:53
Speaker 1: that you're looking for out of your president and UM
13:58
Speaker 1: or lack of right. So while that was the thing,
14:00
Speaker 1: that's the that's the big problem is like you've got
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Speaker 1: your guy who now has to debate UM and who
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Speaker 1: is debating on television, who can just blow it all
14:12
Speaker 1: after a debate or two, you can just completely blow everything.
14:15
Speaker 1: Or like Herman Kinge came out of nowhere, just a
14:19
Speaker 1: a like a businessman from Georgia, millionaire nine nine nine, right.
14:23
Speaker 1: He came up with this plan and did really well
14:26
Speaker 1: in a couple of debates, and it just shot to
14:29
Speaker 1: the front. He passed Romney. I think in polls for
14:31
Speaker 1: a little bit. Um, so debates can can really send you,
14:37
Speaker 1: uh to the front of the pack work and just
14:39
Speaker 1: basically kill all of your chances. Political strategists don't like
14:45
Speaker 1: that at all. Campaign managers don't like that. They like
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Speaker 1: to control everything. Well, this was the heyday though then
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Speaker 1: when the League of Women Voters were running the show.
14:55
Speaker 1: It was the heyday of presidential debates for sure. If
14:58
Speaker 1: you were a voter, yeah, if you were a candidate,
15:01
Speaker 1: it was like, so that's how it should be, right,
15:07
Speaker 1: not hell on Earth, but at least like, you know,
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Speaker 1: spontaneous and real and not rehearsed. Right. So, um, the
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Speaker 1: League of Women Voters, Uh, they they did not acquiesce
15:17
Speaker 1: to any demands of any candidates. They made very sure
15:20
Speaker 1: that all candidates who were qualified got equal time. Um.
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Speaker 1: They just they it was a really fair debate and
15:28
Speaker 1: the Republicans of the Democrats did not like this for
15:31
Speaker 1: our a little more time, didn't they. They they gave
15:34
Speaker 1: Geraldine for Our just a bit more time to write. Yeah,
15:37
Speaker 1: uh yeah, what was Yeah, she's Mondale's um. So the
15:44
Speaker 1: League of Women Voters kind of, I guess, made enemies
15:46
Speaker 1: out of the Democrats and Republicans who are like, wait
15:48
Speaker 1: a minute, wait a minute, this is in effect a
15:51
Speaker 1: two party system, so we're pretty powerful, so let's get together.
15:55
Speaker 1: And they started in nur um. They said, you know what,
16:00
Speaker 1: we're gonna veto a hundred of the panelists. You propose,
16:03
Speaker 1: and we're both gonna do it. They basically shut it down. Yeah,
16:06
Speaker 1: they took control from the League of Women Voters. And
16:08
Speaker 1: the the death knell came in the campaign between George H. W.
16:13
Speaker 1: Bush's campaign and Michael Ducacus's campaign, which got together and
16:18
Speaker 1: created what's called a Memorandum of Understanding. Yeah, and they
16:22
Speaker 1: basically I loved it. It took political candidates don't not
16:27
Speaker 1: want to look like dummies to finally bring the two
16:29
Speaker 1: parties together on one thing. They're like, well, we can
16:32
Speaker 1: agree on this, right, and they did, and the Memoranum
16:35
Speaker 1: of Understanding was a little secret document that said who
16:39
Speaker 1: could be in the audience and the debates, who could
16:42
Speaker 1: be a panelist? Uh, no more follow up questions, and
16:46
Speaker 1: these are the terms. And the League of Women Voters said,
16:50
Speaker 1: that's stinks because now we're just hosting this event. So
16:55
Speaker 1: screw you. Well, they said that they were they resigned
16:59
Speaker 1: as um as. Basically the hosts of presidential Debates love that.
17:05
Speaker 1: They cited fraud on the American voter. That's pretty harsh
17:08
Speaker 1: and um the the so the Democrats and the Republicans
17:12
Speaker 1: were like, well, okay, perfect, that's that's not bad. Where
17:17
Speaker 1: we got rid of the League of Women Voters, but
17:19
Speaker 1: we still need a neutral party. Who is a neutral party? Oh,
17:23
Speaker 1: I've got an idea. We'll create one from scratch. We'll
17:26
Speaker 1: create a neutral party together that we can control. Exactly
17:29
Speaker 1: another neutral called the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is
17:33
Speaker 1: a joint, nonprofit bipartisan organization. And that is a very
17:38
Speaker 1: very very important word. Not nonpartisan like the League of
17:42
Speaker 1: Women Voter. Sure, bipartisan. That means we represent two things,
17:47
Speaker 1: Republicans and Democrats. That's exactly right. So the the CPD,
17:51
Speaker 1: the Commission on Presidential Debate, UM was established, took over
17:57
Speaker 1: hosting presidential debates. It became the only organization that could
18:01
Speaker 1: legitimately host an official presidential scheduled UM four of them
18:07
Speaker 1: for presidential election UM, one of which is always a
18:11
Speaker 1: vice presidential debate. Those are always fun and um basically
18:15
Speaker 1: it does a It does a lot for the Democrats
18:19
Speaker 1: and the Republicans chuck. Yeah, they have to obviously. Uh,
18:24
Speaker 1: it starts about a year out because it takes a
18:25
Speaker 1: lot of time to plan. They have to pick the location,
18:28
Speaker 1: have to pick the moderators, the locations are. It's a
18:32
Speaker 1: little tricky because you want a neutral site and when
18:35
Speaker 1: you have you know, a panel of candidates up there
18:38
Speaker 1: there from all over the country that you know a
18:40
Speaker 1: lot of times are colleges and so obviously can't be
18:42
Speaker 1: tied to that candidate in any way, right, it can't
18:45
Speaker 1: be their alma mater. Yeah, So it takes a while
18:47
Speaker 1: to get everything lined up in probably in the back rooms,
18:51
Speaker 1: secretly approved by everybody exactly because it's like, well, I
18:55
Speaker 1: want this podium to be this high because I can't
18:57
Speaker 1: look short on camera, and I like my candidate likes
19:01
Speaker 1: the debate hall temperature at this Yeah, and what's the
19:04
Speaker 1: background look like, because we don't want you fading away
19:07
Speaker 1: like Richard Nixon. Right, But the even the CPD or
19:11
Speaker 1: this the um. Yeah, the CPD uh provides like an
19:16
Speaker 1: even bigger um function for Democrats and Republicans that acts
19:20
Speaker 1: as a shield, so it can issue some really unpopular decisions. Um,
19:26
Speaker 1: but it's not beholden to the public at all. It
19:28
Speaker 1: answers only to the Democrats and Republicans, and it it
19:31
Speaker 1: since it acts as a shield. Everybody gets mad at
19:33
Speaker 1: the Commission on Presidential Debates when really it was the
19:36
Speaker 1: two campaigns that that came up with that decision. Yeah,
19:41
Speaker 1: like po happened with Pero and everyone remembers Ross Barrow
19:47
Speaker 1: and that was pretty bad. Pero actually, and he was
19:51
Speaker 1: from the Reform Party, had just a seven percent rating
19:54
Speaker 1: before the debates. On election day got about ninetent of
19:58
Speaker 1: the vote, which is a huge the biggest ever. So
20:01
Speaker 1: in nine when he reared his little head again, Dole
20:05
Speaker 1: and Clinton both said we don't want to debate this guy.
20:08
Speaker 1: We don't want him around. And so essentially the the
20:13
Speaker 1: SEC changed the provision. Oh I'm sorry, the the cp
20:18
Speaker 1: D said you're not coming right because of the equal
20:21
Speaker 1: time provision had been like canceled, right, and that was
20:24
Speaker 1: the shield. So even though Clinton and Dole were behind it,
20:28
Speaker 1: it was really the cp D who put like the
20:30
Speaker 1: press release out there, so they took the hit for it, right,
20:33
Speaker 1: And the some poll found that like six percent of
20:37
Speaker 1: voters blamed the Clinton campaign for it, nineteen percent blamed
20:41
Speaker 1: the Dole campaign, but fifty percent blamed the Commission on
20:44
Speaker 1: Presidential Debates, So uh, shield activated. And um, they also
20:51
Speaker 1: got rid of any kind of spontaneity where if you
20:56
Speaker 1: watch presidential debates now, they're basically like, um, they're just
21:00
Speaker 1: press releases. There's no follow up questions. There's just like,
21:04
Speaker 1: here's the question that you've known for three weeks, we're
21:07
Speaker 1: going to ask you, let's hear your answer. So it's
21:10
Speaker 1: just completely managed and massaged. So um, and they were
21:13
Speaker 1: criticized too. Yeah. John Kerry had a good, um, good
21:16
Speaker 1: criticism in two thousand. He said, quote, you could have
21:19
Speaker 1: picked ten people off the street who didn't know Jerusalem
21:22
Speaker 1: from Georgia and they would have had better questions. So
21:25
Speaker 1: that's where we stay right now. The Commission on Presidential Debates,
21:28
Speaker 1: it still runs the show as much as there They
21:32
Speaker 1: play a little looser though, like these candidates sort of
21:35
Speaker 1: run over the rules, like barring someone like Anderson Cooper
21:40
Speaker 1: coming out there and taping someone's mouth shut. You still
21:43
Speaker 1: see them like, you know, running over the time. And
21:47
Speaker 1: I remember when Bush and Gore um debated one another,
21:52
Speaker 1: that was there's just so much sniping about what I
21:55
Speaker 1: was supposed to have my time and he had his time,
21:57
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna take extra time, and it just it's
21:59
Speaker 1: sort of gets out of hand. It was it was
22:01
Speaker 1: it a presidential debate or a primary debate? No, I
22:04
Speaker 1: mean feels Bush and Gore when a primary debate or
22:07
Speaker 1: well no, but was it like hosted by CNN or
22:10
Speaker 1: something like that, or was it official? You know, I
22:12
Speaker 1: don't remember. I mean it was the famous one where
22:14
Speaker 1: they started showing reaction shots and it showed George Bush
22:18
Speaker 1: getting all perturbed each time Gore with you know, they
22:21
Speaker 1: had the split screen up basically, so that one was
22:24
Speaker 1: um uh two thousand four between Carrie and Bush. Well
22:30
Speaker 1: they seed they did the same thing with Gore because
22:32
Speaker 1: I watched it earlier and George Bush is annoyed. Well,
22:35
Speaker 1: they just showed a split screen so while Gore was talking,
22:37
Speaker 1: it showed Bush's reactions the whole time and then vice versa. Right,
22:40
Speaker 1: and apparently there was a memorandum of understanding that the
22:43
Speaker 1: networks were just like, no, we're not gonna do that.
22:45
Speaker 1: We're going to film breakaway shots that that may have
22:47
Speaker 1: been a scene and thing, though you're right, it may
22:49
Speaker 1: not have been official. Um, let's see what else, Chuck, Well,
22:54
Speaker 1: what makes an ideal debate? We've talked, we pooh pooed it.
22:56
Speaker 1: What makes a good one, Well, a good one, like
22:59
Speaker 1: you said, it needs to be fair, So like the CPD,
23:02
Speaker 1: the CPD is doing some stuff fairly, like um, not
23:06
Speaker 1: holding a debate at the alma mater of one of
23:11
Speaker 1: the candidates or their home state or their hometown or
23:14
Speaker 1: anything like that, and they can't. You also pointed out
23:17
Speaker 1: that it's usually a bigger city too, because you have
23:19
Speaker 1: to have what is it, three thousand available hotel rooms
23:25
Speaker 1: and pay a seventy application fee, So that rules out
23:28
Speaker 1: anywhere in Kansas, right pretty much? You know, yeah, yeah, Um.
23:35
Speaker 1: There's also the division of time is very important. You know,
23:39
Speaker 1: most of the time candidates will well they almost always
23:43
Speaker 1: get time at the beginning and at the end, and
23:47
Speaker 1: then in the middle that's where it kind of gets
23:49
Speaker 1: like wild and crazy, like how you're gonna divide the time? Uh?
23:53
Speaker 1: And you know, is there gonna be rebuttals? Are you're
23:55
Speaker 1: gonna allow cross examination? That's very rare, Um, But ideally
24:00
Speaker 1: you everybody has equal time in the middle, and then
24:03
Speaker 1: you usually have like a moderator. Yeah, there's three formats basically,
24:06
Speaker 1: well there's moderator panel in town hall. Yeah, and there's
24:09
Speaker 1: almost always a moderator no matter what, and all three
24:11
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, and the panelists it's uh, they're like
24:15
Speaker 1: you said, there's still could be a moderator, but you
24:17
Speaker 1: just have more than one person um replacing So there's
24:22
Speaker 1: a moderator replacing the moderator with a panel, but you
24:25
Speaker 1: still have a moderator. Sort of confusing it is. And
24:28
Speaker 1: then town hall is usually the fun the audience asking
24:32
Speaker 1: questions costs examining the the candidate. That's a very rare
24:37
Speaker 1: one too, because you know, anything can happen. Somebody could
24:39
Speaker 1: go off script. Yeah, that's true. Um, you have to
24:45
Speaker 1: actually qualify for debate. You can't just say how I
24:47
Speaker 1: am Joe Walsh and I'm running for president and I
24:50
Speaker 1: want to be on there singing Rocky Mountain way. Yeah.
24:53
Speaker 1: The rules for qualifying for a debater that you have
24:56
Speaker 1: to be just it's it has to be statistically possible
25:01
Speaker 1: for you to win in the electoral college. So your
25:05
Speaker 1: name has to appear on like a certain amount of
25:07
Speaker 1: state ballots, right, yeah, and you have to have a
25:10
Speaker 1: fIF of voter support before the debate. But if you
25:15
Speaker 1: if you qualify for that, and a lot of people do,
25:17
Speaker 1: then you can be in these debates. Supposedly that that
25:22
Speaker 1: was a league of women voters stuff. I wasn't, so
25:25
Speaker 1: some of that still carried over. That's good. So these
25:29
Speaker 1: things are important, though nonetheless because you know, nowadays as
25:34
Speaker 1: you're influenced almost as much by what everyone says about
25:37
Speaker 1: the debate as the debate itself, because immediately after and
25:41
Speaker 1: actually even during sometimes the debates, the networks and the
25:46
Speaker 1: cable stations and the internet will start saying, well, who won,
25:49
Speaker 1: This was strong? He was strong, here, she was strong there. Um.
25:53
Speaker 1: They pull people on, you know, immediately afterward, either on
25:56
Speaker 1: the internet or by telephone and sort of say, well,
26:00
Speaker 1: this is who won, regardless of what you think. Well yeah,
26:03
Speaker 1: and then once the polls released, it's like, yeah, your
26:07
Speaker 1: your perception is affected. It's all about perception. If you
26:10
Speaker 1: were maybe on the fence before, it's like, oh, well
26:12
Speaker 1: everybody else thinks they want and then heck, yeah they
26:14
Speaker 1: won of course. Um. There are some classic examples of
26:19
Speaker 1: clear winners and losers in debates, Like you mentioned George
26:22
Speaker 1: Bush Like looking annoyed during breakaway shots, he still won. Um.
26:28
Speaker 1: The I think his father was caught looking at his
26:32
Speaker 1: watch a bunch of times during the nineteen with Clinton,
26:37
Speaker 1: that was pretty big. Um. Dan Quayle and the vice
26:41
Speaker 1: presidential debate, he compared himself, do you remember this man, big,
26:46
Speaker 1: big mistake. He compared himself to this is dan Quayle.
26:50
Speaker 1: He compared himself to John F. Kennedy. Well, it was
26:53
Speaker 1: a loose comparison though one and I don't remember the
26:55
Speaker 1: exact quote, but I think he was probably talking about
26:57
Speaker 1: his youth and vigor. Yeah, but I think I remember
27:00
Speaker 1: at the time feeling like like he got shut down
27:03
Speaker 1: by Lloyd Lloyd Benson. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy
27:07
Speaker 1: was a friend of mine and you Senator or no,
27:09
Speaker 1: Jack Kennedy. I remember feeling in time like he wasn't
27:11
Speaker 1: really saying he was like Jack Kennedy. I felt sort
27:14
Speaker 1: of bad for him, but pounced on him. He pounced
27:16
Speaker 1: on him, Uh, just like Reagan did. And I watched
27:19
Speaker 1: that clip earlier too. He got a good laugh in
27:21
Speaker 1: the Mondale debate when he I can't remember the moderator,
27:24
Speaker 1: but he asked Reagan about his health and his age
27:27
Speaker 1: as the oldest candidate, and they said, you appeared tired
27:29
Speaker 1: recently after your meetings in Russia, and quite honestly, do
27:34
Speaker 1: you have what it takes healthwise to to be president?
27:39
Speaker 1: And uh or to remain president. I think it was
27:41
Speaker 1: re election, wasn't it. And uh, yeah, Carter, and he said,
27:46
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna, you know, bring this in age, bring
27:49
Speaker 1: age into this equation. I don't want to exploit for
27:52
Speaker 1: political purposes the youth and inexperience of my candidate or
27:55
Speaker 1: my rival. And Mondale even busted out laughing. It was
27:59
Speaker 1: a very nice, slight moment. Mindale was awesome. He he
28:03
Speaker 1: loved a good joke, even when he was the butt
28:05
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, he was that kind of guy. At
28:08
Speaker 1: least he wasn't that case. He was the eighties. George mcgoverned,
28:13
Speaker 1: um So, Chuck. We we we talked about the nineteen sixty
28:15
Speaker 1: the Great Debate changing everything. Television changed everything, and then
28:19
Speaker 1: the two political parties wrestled um that change and used
28:24
Speaker 1: it to their advantage. Um. But now social media is
28:28
Speaker 1: starting to have that impact, and it really kind of
28:30
Speaker 1: popped up most for the first time. In two thousand
28:33
Speaker 1: and eight, there was like the CNN YouTube town halls,
28:37
Speaker 1: which were pretty cool, but you know, they people were
28:41
Speaker 1: allowed to submit questions on YouTube and then the two
28:44
Speaker 1: campaigns got to choose what questions were answered or chosen,
28:47
Speaker 1: which they were criticized for. Yeah. But um, my Space
28:50
Speaker 1: and MTV held town halls and um, it's some some
28:56
Speaker 1: social media site. I think it's like, um, get glue
29:00
Speaker 1: were something like that. Um, but it's like it has
29:03
Speaker 1: cobwebs on it. It's weird. I guess it's for Halloween though. Um.
29:08
Speaker 1: The but the MySpace, uh, MySpace, MTV town hall, I
29:13
Speaker 1: think they were town hall formats. Um. The moderator chose
29:17
Speaker 1: questions as they came in live. So that was like
29:20
Speaker 1: a triumph. Techniques loved it. Yeah, but I mean think
29:24
Speaker 1: about it, that's reinjecting spontaneity through social media. I'm sure
29:28
Speaker 1: Facebook was involved in this Last Earth uninvolved but certainly
29:32
Speaker 1: lit up. Well, they picked the they picked two one, yeah, okay,
29:36
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg and Eric Schmidt decided who it was, and
29:40
Speaker 1: that Twitter played apart two right. Yeah. There was the
29:44
Speaker 1: debate between McCain and Barack Obama or their surrogates who
29:48
Speaker 1: knew how to use Twitter, and they were responding to
29:51
Speaker 1: questions from a moderator from time in a hundred and
29:53
Speaker 1: forty characters or least. I'm sure McCain had no idea
29:56
Speaker 1: what Twitter was at the time, you know, do your
30:00
Speaker 1: remember there was there was this one debate between it
30:03
Speaker 1: was an official debate between Obama and McCain, and McCain
30:07
Speaker 1: looked like he was just wandering around this this set
30:10
Speaker 1: like he didn't know where he was supposed to be.
30:12
Speaker 1: And then Obama seemed like a like a schoolboy, like
30:16
Speaker 1: when the moderator was like your times up, he'd stopped
30:18
Speaker 1: real quick and look at him like, am I in trouble?
30:21
Speaker 1: And I was like, these are the two guys? Huh? Well?
30:23
Speaker 1: And it's that just proves though, how like influence of
30:26
Speaker 1: perception and television even from a silly like going to
30:31
Speaker 1: commercial break shot of like McCain wandering around or something
30:35
Speaker 1: you know, but yeah, while Obama was answering, he's just
30:39
Speaker 1: wandering around. Well, you know. It was something, but yeah,
30:43
Speaker 1: it'silly influenced my perception, but it influenced my perception perception
30:47
Speaker 1: of Obama too that like he wasn't quite ready. Yeah,
30:51
Speaker 1: something else that television. Huh Yeah, let's go vote, Chuck,
30:55
Speaker 1: let's go vote for something. Yeah, I'll vote. Did you
30:58
Speaker 1: feel like voting on something? Suffrage that's already been done? Okay. Um,
31:03
Speaker 1: if you want to read a really literary article on
31:08
Speaker 1: presidential debates written by me checks On, a big fan
31:12
Speaker 1: of it, I don't blame that. It's cool. Um, you
31:14
Speaker 1: can type in presidential debates in the search bar at
31:18
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Yeah, yes, which brings up
31:23
Speaker 1: listener mail Josh. Occasionally we like to shout out to
31:27
Speaker 1: our troops overseas, and we're doing that right now. Okay,
31:32
Speaker 1: Hi guys, Norm who was uh Lizzell's husband. Lazelle wrote
31:38
Speaker 1: in uh, ENORM is currently station because we had conversed
31:41
Speaker 1: back and forth. That's why it seems very casual here.
31:44
Speaker 1: ENORM is currently stationed at f o B Salerno in Afghanistan.
31:48
Speaker 1: What is that Front Operating Base Forward operating Base sounds
31:52
Speaker 1: right uh in the three hundred and fifty second Combat
31:56
Speaker 1: Support Hospital in the Coast Province that is k h
32:01
Speaker 1: O SD Cost Province. He is a trauma nurse working
32:04
Speaker 1: the evening shifts and will be there till the end
32:06
Speaker 1: of February. Many in his unit are working twelve hour
32:10
Speaker 1: shifts five to six days a week, providing medical care
32:13
Speaker 1: to both US troops and Afghan civilians. Right now, his
32:17
Speaker 1: family basically is the unit in Afghanistan. So I was
32:20
Speaker 1: wondering if you can give a shout out to him
32:22
Speaker 1: and his c SH or even do a show about
32:25
Speaker 1: how medical combat support hospitals work, that would really help
32:30
Speaker 1: make him and others in his unit happy. A lot
32:33
Speaker 1: of them are kind of blue right now, obviously for
32:35
Speaker 1: being in the same place, doing the same thing day
32:37
Speaker 1: in and day out while handling the trauma there. Norm secretly,
32:40
Speaker 1: which is that you and Josh would be a part
32:42
Speaker 1: of the U s O and travel and share your
32:45
Speaker 1: show with folks abroad. I would go to Afghanistan. I
32:48
Speaker 1: would totally do that. I've listed a site which will
32:51
Speaker 1: give you more information on the people who have given
32:54
Speaker 1: a year or more to help our country. So if
32:57
Speaker 1: you guys want to go check out what combat support
32:59
Speaker 1: hospitals are liking to do. Operation support Salerno dot org
33:04
Speaker 1: and that is s A L E R n oh
33:07
Speaker 1: dot org slash Soldier Underscore Support. So, Operations Support Salerno
33:15
Speaker 1: dot org slash Soldier Underscore Support. Many thanks in advance,
33:19
Speaker 1: and that is from Lazelle. My brother in law's going
33:25
Speaker 1: back for a year. No way, Yeah, where's he going.
33:29
Speaker 1: He's going to Afghanistan really in January. What does he
33:33
Speaker 1: do there? He is a marine colonel, helicopter pilot and dude,
33:40
Speaker 1: he is in line to become a general. No way,
33:44
Speaker 1: how cool is that? That's really cool? So we're all
33:47
Speaker 1: rooting for him for that. Yeah, we should start sort
33:50
Speaker 1: of social media effort on his behalf. I don't think
33:53
Speaker 1: they can consider that. Yeah, it's quite a force to
33:57
Speaker 1: be reckoned with. He'll make it. He's he's always been
33:59
Speaker 1: in the other class. He's one of those guys. So also,
34:02
Speaker 1: if you want to know what, um what a forward
34:05
Speaker 1: operating based hospital is like, you can just watch mash Sure.
34:09
Speaker 1: I'm sure that's pretty accurate depiction. Yeah, they just sit
34:12
Speaker 1: around and drink homemade whisker on my gin. And yeah,
34:14
Speaker 1: yeah um, thank you, Lizelle, We appreciate that, and good
34:18
Speaker 1: luck to you and norm Um, and good luck to
34:21
Speaker 1: your brother in law, Chuck. Stay safe, everybody. Yeah uh.
34:24
Speaker 1: If you want to let us know how your family
34:26
Speaker 1: is doing, we're interested, we want to hear. You can
34:28
Speaker 1: tweak to us at s y s K podcast. You
34:32
Speaker 1: can join us on Facebook's big party over there. Uh
34:35
Speaker 1: it's uh Facebook dot com, slash stuff you should know,
34:38
Speaker 1: and you can send an email in support of Chuck's
34:42
Speaker 1: brother in law two Stuff podcast at how Stuff works
34:46
Speaker 1: dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,
34:54
Speaker 1: Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as
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Speaker 1: we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow,
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