How US electoral system works– 2

Dar es Salaam. After Super Tuesday, which sees a number of states starting primary voting for aspirants ahead of party’s conventions in August, campaigns for the US top office hot up.

Aspirants criss-cross the country in planned itineraries to woe voters within their parties and give them an edge during the party convention which nominates a candidate.

The provincial campaigns are dotted and characterised by a number of different form of debates among the candidates.

Currently, these debates have dominated many news reports. It is through these debates that the US citizens and the outside world get to know stands of each aspirant on important issues.

Presidential debates have become a custom in the US electoral system. The debates take different forms, but they usually involve main candidates from Democrats and Republican parties. During the primaries usually it is the aspirants within the party who are engaged in such debates, but after nomination, candidates from different parties, and sometimes independent ones, jointly participate in the debates.

However, it is worth noting here that these debates are not constitutionally mandated, but they are now considered a de facto electoral process.

Initially, the debates mainly target undecided voters; those who tend not to be partial to any political ideology or party. But now they have taken a new turn, as they also help the wider world to understand positions of the candidates on important issues, notably the US foreign policy, economy, labour and employment, environment, immigration and war on terrorism to name but a few.

Normally, presidential debates, in which most people are keen, are those held during final campaigns after parties have nominated their candidates. The candidates meet in a large hall, often at a university, before an audience of citizens. The formats of the debates have varied, with questions sometimes posed from one or more journalist moderators and in other cases members of the audience.

Before such debates, media houses normally organise similar debates for aspirants during the primaries. These debates bring together aspirants from the same party.

Debates are broadcast live on television and radio. The first debate for the 1960 Election drew over 66 million viewers out of a population of 179 million, making it one of the most-watched broadcasts in the US television history.

The 1980 debates drew 80 million viewers out of 226 million. Recent debates have drawn decidedly smaller audiences, ranging from 46 million for the first 2000 debate to a high of over 67 million for the first debate in 2012.

Essence of presidential debates

Records show that the first general presidential debate was held in 1960, but there are reports also showing that several other debates were held before that though they were not considered to be presidential debates. For instance, in 1858 records show that Abraham Lincoln and Senator Stephen A. Douglas held a series of seven debates.

These were held without any moderator. It was the candidates themselves who took turns to speak. For instance they agreed that one candidate can have an hour for an opening speech while the second candidate gets one and half hours for an opening speech and reaction. The first candidate then closes the event with half an hour speech. But these debates were when two aspirants were fighting for a senate seat.

But two years later, Lincoln and Douglas were nominated for president by the Republicans and Northern Democrats, respectively. It is believed that the nomination was to a great extent informed by their past debates, which helped people and their parties to define their respective positions in that election. Nevertheless, the two candidates did not meet during the presidential campaign.

In 1948, a history was made when a debate was relayed through a radio. The debate was held in Oregon between Thomas E. Dewey and Harold Stassen, Republican candidates who were competing for the party‘s nomination as presidential candidate.

Not to be outdone, the Democrats followed suit in 1956, with a presidential primary debate between Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver. Moderation of this debate was done by the Student Government Association Council of the University of Maryland, which invited both presidential candidates to debate at the University of Maryland.

Birth of televised debates

Major changes started to occur in 1956 when calls for having ‘official’ and properly moderated presidential debates was made and some people supported the idea. In August of that year, Fred A. Kahn, a student of the University of Maryland, sent a letter to UM president Wilson H. Elkins in which he proposed to have the US presidential candidates from both political parties together on the same platform to answer questions from a panel of college students.

Kahn sent similar letter to the chairmen of the Democratic and Republican parties, Maryland Governor Theodore McKeldin and Eleanor Roosevelt. The idea received strong support from Ms Roosevelt who noted that such debates would interest young students across the US. She later sent a ltter regarding Mr Khan proposal to James Finnegan, Adlai Stevenson’s campaign manager, endorsing Kahn’s proposal. The precise impact of Kahn’s proposal on the Kennedy-Nixon debates during the 1960 presidential campaign is unclear, but his ideas did receive national press exposure. Four years later the first televised debates (the Kennedy-Nixon debates) were held.

The first general election televised presidential debate was held on September 26, 1960, involving the US Senator John F. Kennedy, the Democratic nominee and Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee, in Chicago at the studios of CBS’s WBBM-TV.

Howard K. Smith moderated the debates which also involved a panel composed of Sander Vanocur of NBC News, Charles Warren of Mutual News and Stuart Novins of CBS.

Later, historian J.N. Druckman wrote: “television primes its audience to rely more on their perceptions of candidate image (e.g., integrity). At the same time, television has also coincided with the world becoming more polarised and ideologically driven.” This opened the door for presidential debates, and three more debates were subsequently held among candidates.

Many analysts considered Nixon as a poor performer on television, as he lacked the same telegenic looks in contrast to JFK. While he was considered the better debater, with more policy knowledge and did well on the radio, Nixon wasn’t a snappy dresser, refused make ups in the first debate, would sweat profusely and had what experts call a 5 O’Clock shadow.