Error: Unable to create directory /home/demockra/public_html/wp-content/uploads/2010/09. Is its parent directory writable by the server? The Navy Man and the Celebrity

On October 28, 1980, the country was in the midst of a precipitous economic decline, faced steep gas prices, felt saddled with an unpopular incumbent President, and had been recently and very visibly humbled on the world stage by radical elements in the Middle East. In the final act of their election contest, an aging and tired-looking former Naval officer took the stage for his first (and only) debate with the man his campaign had portrayed as a dangerous, impulsive, Hollywood celebrity who lacked both the experience and the soundness of judgment to respond to far-flung threats in foreign fields.

We all know what happened next.

Governor Reagan, bruised and bloodied by this tireless ad-war, came across (to many who were seeing him for the first time), as smooth, likable, and imminently worthy of the job. A few days later the election was decided in one of the biggest landslides up to that time, and, good or bad, the country has never really been quite the same since.

The story is only noteworthy in our present context because it is our present context. Pundits arguing this past week that debates have little impact on elections have cited data points ranging from the first Kerry-Bush debate (which Kerry won to very little effect on the race) all the way back to the first Reagan-Mondale debate (which Mondale won to even less effect). Those pundits have, to this author’s thinking at least, missed the story completely.

The problem is that not all election contests are created equal. John Kerry’s big debate win in 2004 didn’t have much effect on the contest because the 2004 election was a culture war, with both sides locked-in well in advance and almost no one left in the middle to persuade. Fritz Mondale’s big debate win in 1984 didn’t have much effect on the contest because, in 1984, Mr. Reagan could have taken the stage dressed only in a fig leaf and spent the entire ninety minutes speaking in tongues, and he still would have carried 39 states. To include either of these two races in a regression to determine the significance of debates, is to short-change the potential for debates to matter in elections where the electorate had not completely made up their mind about one candidate or another prior to the debate(s).

Specifically in those races where one candidate is decidedly less palatable, but the other candidate is “scary” or “new” enough to not have yet pulled away, do debates seem to afford their best chance to really shake up the dynamics of an election. In other words, an election where voters want change, but have yet to be completely convinced that they can trust this change. We’ve had three such elections since the advent of televised debates, in 1960, 1980, and 2008. And the “scary” candidate has won the first two, just by taking the stage for his first debate and not being scary. The first debate has thus been what has put the “new” candidate over this threshold of acceptability as a viable alternative to the failing status quo.

Very few among us remember how fatigued the country was with the Eisenhower Administration in the summer and autumn of 1960. Several scandals had broken more or less at once, and the Powers affair had wrought a devastating blow to American pride, prompting renowned Columnist James Reston to skewer the incumbents in language that seems more fitting for today’s scrappy environment, and also eerily adaptable to the current occupants of the White House.

Against this backdrop, Mr. Nixon could only base his argument for the job on the un-readiness of his opponent, a young, good-looking, and little-known Senator. Wisely (indeed uncharacteristically wisely), Nixon left to his surrogates the question of what effect Mr. Kennedy’s Catholicism might have on his governance. But no matter: The race was decided by Mr. Kennedy’s Presidential appearance and his calm demeanor. If there was no longer any reason to fear Kennedy, there was also no longer any reason to vote Nixon.

Twenty years later, one might have expected the sharp cookies in the Carter Administration to assume that Reagan would not play directly into their hands by throwing his bellicose weight around on stage. But Carter was unpopular not just for the devastating economic malaise that had descended over the country, but also for the humiliation of the Iranian hostage crisis, which was first-lead on the evening news for the comfortable majority of the 555 days over which it took place. Carter’s only card was that people should be scared of Reagan. When Reagan no longer seemed scary, the public decided it had seen enough to make up its mind.

There is obviously still time for Senator McCain to break this cycle (not to mention time for current events to shift to a more favorable playing field on which he might show his strengths). But with each passing day, almost with each passing hour, it is Mr. Obama who comes nearer and nearer to passing what Karl Rove once famously referred to as “the living-room test.” Would the American public be comfortable hearing from this man, for four to six minutes a night, on their evening news, and not be scared of what he might say? It would seem the answer to that question got a lot less qualified in the minds of many voters after the first debate. And that’s a trend that Senator McCain must shatter to pieces with an act far more brazenly game changing than a “mere” suspension of his campaign, if he still hopes and expects to become our nation’s forty-fourth President.