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Florida Politics: In Defense of the Debate
Political debates demand accountability and give Florida voters meaningful choices.
On September 26, 1960, at CBS studios in Chicago, Illinois, Sen. John F. Kennedy debated Vice President Richard Nixon in the first televised presidential debate.
Nixon, pale and sweating after recovering from a staph infection, is widely considered to have hurt his campaign that night. As the front-runner in 1968 and 1972, Nixon later refused to debate Hubert Humphrey or George McGovern, recognizing the power a debate performance can have on voting outcomes. Debates did not return until Gerald Ford debated…
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