I think first of all, our own records prove that we know the way. There were essentially four debates between john f. Kennedy october 7, nixon, 1960, the second. October 13, 1960, the third. Time il o talk every speak about civil rights in the south . It is because i am preaching. It is a problem for all of us. It is a responsibility of leadership. I do it because we have to solve this problem together. I do it at this time khrushchev, because a man who has enslaved millions, man who has slaughtered thousands, we cannot have a situation where he can continue to point a finger at the usa and say we are denying rights to our citizens. Those trying to carry out the situation what will he do to provide fair employment . He has been the head of the committee on government contracts and he has not indicated his support of providing fair employment around the country so everyone can get a job regardless of their race, nor has he indicated that he would support title iii, which would give the internally attorney general additional powers to host we are back with Barbara Perry. Giving viewers a taste of the debates from 60 years ago. How did these debates come together . What were the hurdles to putting them on television and who sponsored them . The stations guest the stations, the channels. We had three basic channels at cbs. Time, nbc, abc, and we headed tv that only got two of the main channels. Only got totv that have the main channels, nbc and cbs. Some people might remember that for example Walter Cronkites interview with president kennedy around a labor day was to promote the fact that Walter Cronkites evening show was going from a 15 minute format to a 30 minute format. We were also coming off the 1950s quiz show scandals. We were trying to boost to boost their image among the public. They were trying to they approach the candidates and kennedy jumped on the idea because he knew television was his medium. Once he did, the nixon camp could not really refuse. Technological. Medium,ill a fairly new same for television in those days. Of theive us a sense 1960 campaign during dutch at time of the debates campaign at the time of the debates. Guest the cold war. The first debate was meant to be devoted to domestic policy, kennedy and his Opening Statement jumped right into the cold war, which must have put nixon off a little bit. Of course the two were so connected. The cold war, the communists, the u. S. Leading the free world after world war ii but in a bipolar world in which we were communists,ing the certainly the soviets but also the red chinese. At home there was a recession so kennedyn in 1958 kept bashing the Eisenhower Administration on that. M unemployment was high for 7 range. In the 6 , both candidates wanted to shy away from civil rights so as not to put the south off, but they wanted to attract the africanamerican vote. Medical care kennedy hit hard on that. Those were the basic issues foreign and domestic in 1960. Host who is considered the better debater . Uest i would say nixon nixon was a champion debater in college. He went to whittier college. He had gotten into harvard but he did not have the money to travel there. He had gotten a scholarship, but they did not have the money for incidentals. He had a bit of a chip on his shoulder because of that but he was an excellent debater. Kennedy though had gotten better as a public speaker as he went through his career from being elected to congress at the same time nixon was in 1946. 1960e time he gets to the debate, he is good too. He had an odd accent people were not used too. His mother always thought he talked to rapidly. I would say nixon had the edge, hiskennedy was nipping at heels and because he looked better in the first debate, he is usually viewed as the winner there. From that point on it was pretty much a draw. Host there is always focus on who the moderators are. Who were they in 1960 . Guest the names people would probably recognize would be those who went on to be anchors on their networks. Howard k smith was the first moderator. We also had people like frank mcgee who went on to be a moderator. Questions,ere asking some of them went on to be encouraged, most famously Walter Cronkite and don chancellor. The others, although i have paid a lot of attention, were still new to me. A lot of them were printed journalists from the time because they wanted to have a mix between broadcast and print and some of them were on Radio Networks that no longer exist, but those four names were household names. Host a twitter user rights and saying i remember the debates as a young person. Kennedy was inspirational. Accent was not. There was little need to fact check nixon was not. There was little need to fact check trade how times have changed. Can you comment on the role of the moderators . Impressive, even if one does not think nixon has nixon wasin some ways at his peak in 1960. He was not the nasty assassin nixon. His running mate before the nixon hadte said that an image from a fighting communists. I thought that he was sort of a balanced personality and he was not the socalled new nixon who recreated himself for the 1968 run. He kind of became the nixon of parody. He became a balanced nixon at that point. In terms of moderators and Fact Checking, people will notice both of these debaters are excellent debaters. They have their facts straight. They keep to the time limit so there is no intervention from the moderators. It goes very smoothly. It is quite nostalgic to think wouldnt it be great if we could have that kind of debate now . Host Barbara Perry are guest now as we look back 60 years to the first nationally televised president ial debate back in 1960, joining us from the Miller Center at the university of virginia. Millercenter. Org is where you can find out about the Miller Center. Phone lines are split up as usual. Democrats, republicans, and independents. We will start with joe in pittsburgh, republican caller . Republican. Caller do you think nixons big mistake in 1960 besides looking so horrible in the first debate was this stupid 50 states a strategy he had that he promised to visit every state during the campaign . I think it was selfdefeating. My second question was obviously 0 debates were influential. Why were there no more debates and 1976 . 0 guest great question. The 50 state strategy i think joe is right it worked against nixon. I believe he was in an old mode. He was thinking of us. Campaigns of old where the more the candidate got out in the 20th century, the better off. More people saw because he had that period three weeks before the debate, he had an infection and had the flu, he ran himself ragged and continue to do that through the rest of the campaign. That backfired against him. Kennedy went to 48 of the 50 states himself but over a longer period of time. The question about why no more 1976. S until we get to Lyndon Johnson was not the most charismatic figure, so he did not want to debate in 1964. Very goldwater and kennedy who were friends from the senate odd about doing a whistle stop debate tour thought about doing a whistle stop debate tour. Who is running in 1968 but Richard Nixon . He was not going to go back and debate after his experience in 1960. Host we go to nicole in england incoal in england cole england this morning. Jfk, john f. Think kennedy is the best orator . Do you think thats why he won the 1960 election . Guest possibly one of the best rhetoricians in the presidency, i would say yes to that. He did not start that way. He was not a natural public speaker. He had taken public speaking lessons. I studied the relationship he had with eleanor roosevelt. She wrote to him in the early part of his presidency and said you need to take more voice lessons. As we look back now and contrast him with some more recent candidates, he does seem to be a smooth talker, a fluent speaker, a great rhetorician, a great orator. He had a lot going for him the time he got to 1960 and did to the presidency. I would rank him up there among the top rhetoricians in the presidency. Host did nixon and kennedy dislike each other in 1960 . Guest no, they did not. Congress at the same time. They both came in in 1947 and that is when they first met at the press club in washington. Y were both pale fellows hail fellows well met. A famous anecdote my friend Chris Matthews talks about in his book on nexen and Kennedy Nixon and kennedy, they went up to pennsylvania to do a debate because they were seen as the young up and comers in the democratic and republican parties and then they talked baseball. They hopped on the train into shared a burger on the way back sharedington and and a burger on the way back to washington. Politics we long for now where people can be friends across the aisle kennedy always said i opponents see my as enemies, i see them as adversaries. Guest along the same caller along the same lines, kennedy had a dry run when he debated senator humphrey as they were going for the nomination. Cspan had an opportunity to watch that debate and i was blown away by how two thirds with i agree with senator humphrey, i agree with i agree with senator kennedy. How did that opportunity help kennedy prepare for the debates against nixon in the general election . Guest that is correct. Short of the president ial candidates debating, we had some of that leading up to the 1960s yes, theyal debate, had debated. I think that helped but more to the point for kennedy was he loved it to chat and debate informally. His family was famous for doing that at the dinner table. Both of his parents promoted that. Reading this biography called from a random house, and in that biography he talks about kennedys time in the navy and all the men who served with him said he would sit around at night, all the men wanted to play cards and kennedy wanted to talk politics. They made a note to themselves this guy is probably going to end up in politics. Carolina,igh, north this is bruce, republican, good morning. Youre on with the Barbara Perry. Guest caller what do you think about having a debate between the Networks Like cnn and fox news . I think it would be appropriate because there is all this talk about fake news and so on. That would be an interesting experience to watch since we are only having two debates, why dont they throw in the networks and have them debate . Thosedo you think we get debates every night if you just flip the channels back and forth . Ander they dont sit there talk back and forth. An interesting idea. The way these debates came about in addition to the networks wanting to have them was there was a fellow called brett kohn, who is still with us. He lives in a suburb outside of washington. He was a lifelong federal bureaucrat, worked in the federal government and as an undergraduate at the university of maryland, he was a holocaust survivor. He believed the nation would benefit from hearing president ial candidates. He started writing to people in networks and ask them asking them to have debates. Idea t may be bruces maybe bruces idea of having to newscasters debate, go for it, bruce. The firstears since nationally televised president ial debates, showing viewers parts of those debates , including the third debates where the candidates were in separate studios for that third debate. Kennedy was in new york, nixon was in los angeles. Here is part of that third debate, the candidates responding to a question about recent comments about president truman [video clip] it was declared that you owed a public apology for strong charges made by harry truman who doy suggested that the you believe you owe the Vice President and apology daca an apology . Way oftruman has his expressing things. He has been in politics for 50 years. It is not my style. I do not think there is anything i can say to president truman that will coerce him at the age. F 70 maybe misses truman can. Any comments, mr. Vice president . Of course senator kennedy and i and ielt trumans desire think he can speak with feeling on this subject. We all have tempers. I am sure mr. Kennedy has one but when a man as president of the United States or a former president he has an obligation not to lose his temper in public. One thing i have noted as i have traveled around the country are the tremendous numbers of children who come out to see the president ial candidate. I see Mothers Holding their babies up so they can see a man who may be president of the United States. I know senator kennedy sees them to. It makes you realize that whoever is president is going to be a man that all the children of america will either look up to or down to. Host what do you take away from that clip . Guest that is one of my favorites. Im so glad you all chose that one. Let me tell you about morden, who was the head of the rnc. Hewas a kentuckian and became our senator after. A great statesman. I love this clip because it has three profiles first of harry truman. There is an old story of truman taking from some friends of his wife and at one point he used the word manure. Besss friends were scandalized by his use of the word manure. Kennedys wit and how he dealt with that, that was typical of him to diverge attention away from what might be a difficult question, but get a gleam in his eye and turn up the grin. He handled it well. For Richard Nixon, it was poignant to me because todays before the second debate, my mother took me and my two brothers to downtown louisville, kentucky to see senator john f. Kennedy campaigning through our town. Until she passed away, she would say i got there early and stood in front of the podium so you could see him. What he is saying is true. It is ironic as we know how his presidency ended and he was not the kind of person people could look up to because of the scandal of the watergate. Anding about harry truman his colorful language, both kennedy and nixon could swear like this so sailors they had been in what two. In world war ii. Caller in a president ial debate, what should we be listening for . Really important question, isnt it . I would be listening for facts. It is always good to know that those who may be sitting in the oval office are informed. They obviously can have different approaches to the facts and different ideologies and different partisanship and different policies but it is helpful to understand that they know what is happening and especially since we are facing at least three crises at this time with covid, racial unrest, and obviously and the economy that is lagging in part because economy that is lagging in part because of covid. It is important to know that they can be fluent in speaking about those facts and informing the nation, that and basic personality types are important. Previous tweets that we showed, the viewer brought in Fact Checking. Where there such a thing as Fact Checkers in those first debates . Guest im not sure because this was such a new format that they formally had Fact Checkers. Checkingdates were each other in real time. They were checking each other for what they had said on the stump or they were checking each other on their careers and how they had voted in the past. That is what i found so impressive about both of them and the fact they were speaking most of the time seemingly without any notes. Occasionally kennedy would refer to a statement, but they would look into the camera and to speak and speak fluently and with knowledge and with a great care given to analysis. Host do we know how Many Americans watched those debates in 1960 live or listen live on the radio . Guest we do. We believe upwards of 70 million. Rds of 66 million tuned in for the first debate. Remember, there was not a lot of choice in tv watching at that time and obviously no computers and cell phones and things like that to distract people. There was a bit of a captive audience. Host one of the stats from cnn host one of this thats from cnn, some 28 Million People watching debates between Hillary Clinton and donald trump. Guest guest a lot less guest , because we did not even have 200 million americans in 1960. Once kennedy was elected, the same was true for his first rest conferences which famously went live and were in prime Time Press Conferences which famously went live and were in prime time. Host st. Petersburg, florida, paula, republican. Caller i am enjoying this segment. I remember back during that time and i was not able to vote, but at the time i probably would have voted for kennedy. I think a lot of people were enthralled with him and then the past i have i voted for president carter. I always try to vote for the man or woman who would be the best, and i just wish we could get back to that respect between our candidates, what you were talking about, and the Fact Checking is so important today. I am enjoying this very much and it brings back a lot of memories for me. Host thank you, paula. Inst i want to note that one debate there was a question about party labels, and both candidates i think related really to what paul is saying. She chooses the candidate for as who wouldd vote be the best man or woman for the job. Candidates were saying, dont vote for me because i am democrat or republican but vote for me because im qualified, experienced, ready from day one to be president. Of recentature president ial debates, the spin room, the attempt by each side to immediately claim their candidate won the debate. What happened immediately after the 1960 debates . Was there anything like that . Guest i cant find it if there is. I think because these were so to remembero have the difference in technology on cameras, for example. It took a lot of time for those big, heavy cameras to warm up so they would have had the cameras in place, get the candidates and their people there. It was not the kind of spin room phenomenon we have now. I could find that at least in private, the candidates were talking to their advisors about the debate. Kennedy was pleased with his performance in the first debate, and he called up his pollster, lou harris, and said, i think i can take him. They talked about it privately. Nixon knew he had not done well ,n the first bait debate especially when his mother called him and said, are you ok . Host deborah, democrat, good morning. Caller i was a little girl when those debates were on but i can remember watching with my mother and father, and they told me how important the debate was. Now i believe that the Young Children and young adults do not know much about United States history and it is not being taught, about how important debates are and how important the president ial elections are, and this above all is one of the most important that people should as a family get together and tell them how important this is to get the truth out. The only way some people will know the truth is when you do have a debate and they can have the fact check on tv right away because of that. I just want to say i was so happy that i do have that memory of the 1960 president ial debate. Host Barbara Perry . Guest good for the caller, and i have that same memory. Many might remember the scene in back to the future where Michael J Fox goes back to 1955 and he mentions they have two tvs, and the mother says, he must be joking, no one has two tvs. Had960, 80 of households tvs. It was one tv and the family gathered around. There are marvelous pictures of families and their Young Children sitting in front of the blackandwhite tvs watching these debates. , abouts and students politics, about civics, we have really good teachers and we need to put more emphasis on history and civics, but i think we are doing as good a job as we can. Gather the family around together and watch the debates coming up. Back to the future reference i thought you would bring up. Ronald reagan as says, theand doc actor . Guest also remember the scene where Michael J Fox says to his family that he had gone back to thatars before and says, is on john f. Kennedy boulevard, isnt it . Who thefather says, hell is john f. Kennedy . Host this morning joined by Barbara Perry on cspan and cspan3s American History tv, as we welcome back 60 years to those televised debates. Democrats, 202, 748 this is joy, alexanders city, alabama, republican. Good morning. Caller good morning. Forusband called me a nerd watching this on sunday morning before church, but my question history behind the two candidates, given they both had things in their past. Kennedy hadgry and personal indiscretions, if you will, and all of that. If those two candidates were to run today, how do you think they would fair given social media given social media, given that news a splitsecond every time you turn . Host no nerds here, or maybe we are probably all nerds. Guest how dare joyces husband say that . I think of us as historians. Wonderful question, because it seems like we have come in some ways fullcircle. That is, if you think about people knowing about kennedys, so discreetly, his indiscretions, that would be all over the media. Bill clinton was impeached because of indiscretions. Now we get to the point where we have a president who seems to have many indiscretions in his background, but it didnt matter to people who voted for him, so it seems that in that sense we have come full circle. No one ever said nixon had personal indiscretions involving unfaithfulness to his wife, but yes, his anger, and some corruption issues on how he went about campaigning, he had a scorched earth approach to campaigning. That seems to be the white house approach now and watergate seems miles from todays standards. It seems we would have more information from those candidates in 1960 and we have come full circle in that we are so satiated, it no longer seems to matter. Host martin, a republican, good morning. Caller good morning. Host turn down your television so we can hear you. Caller can you hear me now . Host yes, what is your question or comment . Caller i have a comment that has been bothering me for a while. I think our news has become propagandized too much. Imok at one channel if hearing somebody speak and i turn the channels, i am getting all different answers or rhetoric that is not true. I feel like the news should be think weed and i dont would ever have propaganda has propagandization in our news. Guest i would not say we have never had what he calls propaganda. We have times in our press history going back to the founding i am in charlottesville, virginia, and Thomas Jefferson was excoriated by the press on the opposite side of the political idols for years, so we political aisle for years, so we have had Partisan Press in the 20th century. If you are watching cspan, you are getting realtime news that you can judge for yourself. I would always say to students, read newspapers. Now you can get them online so they are much easier to read. Hardwhen you are reading a news story versus a feature versus an oped versus an opinion, and get a variety of sources. That is more true than ever. Wants youe on twitter to dive into the relationship between ike and nixon. Wasdisliked nixon but he drafted to be a candidate, and he took nixon as Vice President to placate the gop and was stuck with him. Ike was right. Guest i think steve is right. He is right about the history and analyzing about how eisenhower felt about nixon, and was ready to dump him prior to the checkers speech in 1962. , one of in the debate the newscasters on the panel ,sked about this very question and eisenhower was given example ofou give an Vice President nixon helping you , he said, if you give me about a week i perhaps can come up with one. That was really damming and damaging toward nixon. Detroit, democrat, you are next. Caller hello. 19 64, in 1964, i was 24 and living in chicago. Johnson and goldwater squared off. It host Barbara Perry barbaraperry host perry, something you know about . Guest that was very common in those days. Sunday talk shows, kennedy loved being on those programs, and you can watch them on youtube going back to the early and mid50s. He would take every opportunity to sharpen his skills in debate and take questions. I am not familiar with that particular show. I do know that goldwater was not friendly towards johnson, did not want to debate him, and johnson knew he was not as skilled a debater as kennedy had been, and he was always and it left off because of the assassination so johnson was not wanting to debate goldwater. Host do we know if kennedy was looking forward to debates in 1964 . Guest he was. He was friends, or at least friendly with goldwater. People across the aisle did not see each other as moral enemies. Goldwaterd not and did not, and they had some mutual respect. Military veterans and they were excited about going out on the stump and going around the country and debating. About 15 minutes left with Barbara Perry from the Miller Center in virginia, looking back 60 years to the president ial debates. Heres a clip from the fourth debate of the candidates closing statement. Kennedy i said i serve this country 14 years, served in the war. If i lose this election, i will continue in the senate to build a stronger country. This year, the United States has it great opportunity to move forward, make a determination at home and around the world to establish itself as a vigorous society. The Republican Party has stood still in the United States and around the world. We are using about 50 of our steel capacity. Inhad a recession in 1958 1954. We are not moving away in education likely should. Here, if westill appoint people to ambassadorships in washington who have a status quo outlook, who do not recognize this is a revolutionary time, than the United States does not cash and we fail because freedom fails. Mr. Nixon in the years to come, it will be written that one of us was elected and he was or was not a great president. What will determine if senator was ay for i if elected great president . It will not be our ambition, because greatness is not written on a campaign poster. Theill be determined to extent that we represent the deepest ideals, the highest feelings and faith of the American People. In other words, the next president , as he leaves america and the free world, can only be as great as the American People are great. I say in conclusion, keep americas faith strong. See that the young people of america have faith in the ideals of freedom and faith in god, which distinguishes us from the atheistic materialists who oppose us. Has a member of a new political generation, there are new means of communication. The character and kurds with which these two men have spoken sets a High Standard for generations to come. Surely, they have set a new precedent. Perhaps they have established a new tradition. This is quincy how. Good night from new york. Just those comments coming days before the 1960 election, Barbara Perry . Guest kennedy focusing on movement, moving forward, and both of them focusing on freedom because of the cold war and andling with the communists particularly the soviets. Kennedy was trying to distinguish himself as what would be the youngest elected president at the age of 43, replacing eisenhower who at the age of 70 was the eldest president we had ever had. He wanted to make that distinction. At seems to be an irony that he talks about the greatness of a president and that we know how ultimately his is ranked among the bottom. Viewed as thet kennedy president , continues in the public consciousness to be right at or near the top of peoples favorite president or president s day most approve up approve of, because he was young and inspirational and the horrific way he died. There is a burning into the american psyche of his persona. If you look at the closing statements, we could be proud of them as americans, and i love the reference nixon makes to the atheistic materialistic communists of the time. President ial cspans president ial historian survey, you can find it on our website at say span. Org cspan. Org. Abraham lincoln in first place, followed by george washington, franklin roosevelt, theodore roosevelt, and dwight eisenhower. Northbrook, bill in illinois, independent. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. The format of the debates has for 60 years. Ame is i think very unrevealing format and that people have canned answers and canned responses. Lincolndub likes lincolndouglas debates, they debated slavery in the territories but to me it would be far more revealing to have the two candidates discuss health care, what is the future of health care . What is the Foreign Relations . Without a moderator, to just see what develops. Have neverw why we really thought about the format of the debates, and i want to hear your comments about what you think about this format. Idea, bill, i like that the idea of taking one topic, particularly Something Like health care. I know they have topics lined up for this upcoming first debate on tuesday and that is one of them. The Supreme Court and the covid epidemic are others, but in that dort period of time, they not get to delve into it and they come up with canned answers. I question whether the lincolndouglas format where each candidate and that was for the senate in illinois could stand up for an hour go on each and debate each other. I dont think we could hold onto an audience in this day and age with an audience with the candidate speaking. Change, iml format not sure we will be doing that this year, but i tend to like those rather than having a panel ask questions. Getting the questions from the American People can be helpful and lets us know about those. Obviously they are carefully screened, but i go back to the 1992 debate where someone asked the question about the economy seemeorge h w bush didnt too relatable or relating to the person who asked the question, and bill clinton came to the person and said, i come from a small state and i know when someone loses a job. That was a turning point. Host the town fall town hall is taking place. A few minutes left with Barbara Perry from the Miller Center at the university of drew virginia, this is terry from oregon, democrat. Caller thank you so much, ms. Perry, i have really enjoyed this segment. I tweeted in my question and got so carried away with watching the old clips, which i viewed on our tv at the age of about 12 and i found anything on tv at that time you watched and it was just great. Voters,ion is, the either this is going to be part of my contribution to the history or i am going to get a History Lesson for you, but didnt we have the womanly go voters, they ran those debates . As aput pamphlets out and firsttime voter for me, i found that happened that helped. It was taken over by corporations. Thank you so much. Yes, terry, really good point. Of are right on in the terms the league of women voters and the debates, they took over the debates as a nonpartisan organization, and they ran them in 1976, 1980, and 1984. As they lead up to 1988, they grew so disheartened trying to deal with the two parties and the two sides and all the demands they were making that they literally stepped out from organizing any further president ial debates, and it has been taken over by not corporations, but the National Debate commission. That has been lead pretty well by the heads of the two parties and i think they have done is get a job as they can in putting these two together. I really liked having the women lay go voters in control, women league of voters in control, nonpartisan and always looking out for the people. Host caller good morning. Our current president is a businessman. Did nixon or kennedy have a business background, or did they come to the debates as politicians . There is a difference between the thinking of both groups. Guest neither man had gone into business or worked in business case,f, but in nixons his father was a small businessman and not very successful. He had run a Grocery Store in Southern California and had not done well in that business. The family was very poor. Children andral nixon had a couple of brothers that ended up with tuberculosis. They had a hard time making ends meet which is why nixon could not take advantage of his admission to harvard. Kennedy came from business. His father was a wall street mogul and hollywood mogul and bought the merchandise market. Kennedy was not interested in going into business himself. Both of these men were veterans of world war ii, nixon and kennedy, and then wanted to serve as public servants. Host rose, democrats line. Caller just because someone says they are a businessman doesnt actually mean they are a businessman. Know, it everything from his father and we are not sure what donald has done with business. I was going to ask about the league of women voters but barbara answered got. Getting back answered that. Getting back to the debates in terms of fox or msnbc or cnn, that is a great idea too. Week, stevest compared to rachel maddow. Sean hannity to rachel maddow. Maybe we can bring wolf blitzer on for the debate, so the three of them in an hours debate on what the media should or what we say, since about the media all the time, might be a great avenue into talking about what brian lamb used to talk about, american exceptionalism. We can find out when america was great. Host that is rose in illinois. Guest that theme has returned of having the debates among those in the news. I like that as an opportunity to see how people think of things differently. If we could bring back our Miller Center friend jim lehrer, who was an excellent moderator, we lost him in january but he was a member of our board and such a lovely man, i would love to him love for him to moderate the debate between fox and msnbc. Host do you think a president ial campaign can happen anytime in the future without president ial debates . Could there be what happened after that 1960 debate, a gap in televised debates . Guest it is hard to imagine that that would happen because of one candidate said, i am just not going to debate and there was some talk of that that trump did not want to debate because he thought the format and operation of the debates were biased but if one candidate said they are not debate, the other will take issue with that. Both of the Major Party Candidates do not want to debate, they can step aside. I think for the foreseeable future, we will have president ial and we should advise president ial debates. Of thearbara Perry University of virginias Miller Center,