Week of October 19: So, What's a Presidential Debate?

By Sylvia Gurinsky

This year's presidential debates have been the topics for plenty of discussion and questions. One question at the top of the list is: Is what we've seen the past few weeks - complete with personal attacks - actually a "debate?"

Certainly the tone of such debates has evolved since John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon engaged in the first televised presidential debates in 1960. Here's a look, for instance, at the third debate between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in 1976:

Carter-Ford #3

It's kind of refreshing hearing them say what they'd do, rather than attacking their opponents beyond disagreeing with policy. (It's also refreshing to hear Ford, a Republican, talk about helping people, and Carter be honest about his discomfort with the fallout from his interview with Playboy magazine.) It was a close election, but Ford and Carter later became friends after their presidencies, and served in many public-service organizations.

The debate also has a far more serious tone - one that lends itself to a serious journalist such as Jim Lehrer, who wound up being criticized for his moderating of the first Obama-Romney debate this year. The real problem was that the debate style (Romney's, in any case, given Obama's passiveness) more closely resembled "American Idol" judges than a serious discussion of the issues.

For many years, televised formats did not let candidates address each other, leading television anchor and reporter Dan Rather to refer to the debates as "joint press conferences."

Now? It seems debates have gone from one extreme to the other.

Somewhere between the two lies a perfect presidential debate.

See you next week. Until then, Happy Viewing!