…but when Lincoln did win the presidency, Stephen Douglas made appearances in the South trying to convince the states to remain in the union. Not that it has any real bearing on this thread, but I think it’s a cool bit of trivia and reflects well on him. Not a bad guy, and country before party and all that.
Am I the only one who remembers Carter no-showing the first 1980 debate, because he felt (correctly, as it turned out) that John Anderson had no chance of winning and it should be between just Carter and Reagan, which the second debate was?
In fact, there was an empty chair on stage representing Carter at the first debate, but unlike the 2012 GOP Convention, nobody talked to it as if he was there. (Also, Saturday Night Live did a sketch where the chair got elected President, as the other options were more double-digit inflation (Carter), all 18-to-20-year-old men (and a few who were 21) would be drafted on January 21 (Reagan), and Who The Hell’s This Guy? (Anderson).)
Senators were appointed by the state legislature at the time, not even elected by by the public.
Really? Most of the country saw a deer caught in the headlights.
It’s tough to win when the questions which define you are “Who am I? Why am I here?” (YouTube video).
Yes. One of the major issues in the campaign for state legislature was “Who will we send to the Senate?” so Senatorial candidates debated - if you liked Lincoln, you voted for the party that was committed to sending Lincoln to the Senate, and if you liked Douglas, you voted for the party that was committed to sending him to the Senate.
There was some of that an there was some great directness. You have to make allowances for regular folks. expecting a regular guy to answer every question smoothly in a national debate would be like expecting a regular guy to excel at playing Hamlet.
Gore and Quayle were so polished, so handled, so coached, and it was never more obvious than when standing next to Stockdale. Take away their staffs and I bet it’s a much fairer fight.
Of course. Nobody can force a candidate to speak, or even to attend an event.
Ha. In a parliamentary system, where the party leaders are debating all the time in parliament, the UK has never gone in much for formal TV debates as you do in the US. Till the last general election in 2010, that is, when the third party managed to get both their opponents saying “I agree” to a fair bit of what they were saying, and gained a substantial amount of support; and now it seems to be getting to be expected for the next election this May.
Except that there has been a lot of to and fro as to which parties are going to be invited. Last time, it was only the leaders of the three main parties, but now there are two outliers in the frame, and the Scottish Nationalists want their day in the sun as well. The Tories were refusing to take part unless the Greens are in (because they think they might draw votes from Labour), none of the parties wants UKIP in, despite the fact that they appear to be more on the up than the Greens, so now we don’t know where we stand. The Green leader had a disastrous interview on the radio recently, so maybe that’ll shift opinion a bit.