By Alex Wodzicki
The raucous first debate of the 2020 US presidential election, held on September 29th in Cleveland, was a prime example of a modern political leaders’ debate. Over 90 minutes, Donald Trump and Joe Biden argued about covid-19, the economy, climate change, the other person’s political record, and generally made their case to be elected president to the American people. The debate was moderated by Chris Wallace, a Journalist from Fox News, and was nationally televised, drawing over 73 million viewers excluding those who streamed it. Despite the difficulty, and the risk of holding in-person events in the midst of a global pandemic, political leaders’ debates have continued on across the globe and at all levels of politics: British Columbia held a debate for their provincial election on Tuesday, New Zealand held one for their federal election on Thursday and the US even had a vice-presidential debate last Wednesday. Political leaders’ debates seem like such an integral part of the modern democratic process, but they are actually a relatively recent phenomena in politics. Below is a brief History of leaders’ debates in the US and Canada, which will hopefully give you a better understanding of why they are the way they are, and maybe even provide something to think about other than bashing your head against a wall during future debates.
Although political leaders’ debates have a long history in the US, most notably the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates on slavery in 1858, prior to the prolifieration of television their impact on a national scale was limited. The first televised leaders’ debate was held for the 1960 US presidential election between the Republican candidate Richard Nixon and Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy. The debate was hugely influential on a national level, garnering over 70 million viewers (out of a population of 179 million at the time). Nixon’s poor performance in the debate is generally regarded as a major reason that he would go on to lose the 1960 election. This first debate (and the 3 more that followed during the 1960 election), established the general format that would become the standard for future leaders’ debates. It was hosted by a cable news network, lasted around 90 minutes, was televised nationally, and moderated by a non-partisan panel of journalists. The presidential debate would not return to the US until 1976, when Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter would debate each other 3 times, but would remain a central part of American election process thereafter.
While leaders’ debates in the US were on hiatus, Canada had adopted the practice, holding a televised debate in 1968 between Liberal candidate Pierre Trudeau, Progressive-Conservative candidate Robert Stanfield, NDP candidate Tommy Douglas and Ralliement Créditiste (a Quebec-only party) candidate Réal Caouette. The debate was conducted in both English and French, and was jointly produced by CTV and CBC. Debates were not held in Canada for the 1972 or 1974 elections, but in 1979 televised debates were held again and have been a fixture of Canadian politics ever since.