A Glance at the Race for the White House

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Each time we prepare to elect a president, there always seems to be someone seeking a party's nomination who sought it before but fell short. Most of the time, that candidate (or those candidates in especially active presidential election cycles) is said to be taking a different approach this time — presumably because the original approach failed the first time.

The message may be different, or the candidate may choose a different way to convey that message. The latter appears to be what Hillary Clinton is doing. "Clinton plans to forgo the packed rallies that marked her previous campaign," writes the Associated Press' Lisa Lerer, "and focus on smaller round-table events with selected groups of supporters."

Sometimes that is a good idea; other times, not so much. I am skeptical that it will help Clinton avoid questions about her email or acceptance of cash contributions from foreign governments seeking access while she was secretary of State. In the context of previous presidential campaigns, that isn't really surprising. It is frequently — but not always — difficult to know whether changing the message or how the message is presented is the right approach the second time around — until after the campaign is over.

By that time, of course, one need look no further than the election results to decide if the candidate (should he or she win the nomination) made the right choice. If it wasn't, there will be no shortage of scapegoats and other excuses in what boils down to a circular firing squad.

What is more certain these days is that it is difficult for a party to prevail in three consecutive national elections. Some people attribute that to fatigue with the incumbent party. Since the postwar era has coincided with the advent of television — which, in turn, has led to Americans having unprecedented access to a president's daily activities — that makes sense.

And I do think that plays a role in it, but I think it is more complex than that. Now, I'm going to lay a little groundwork here. I apologize in advance if it seems elementary.

There are two kinds of presidential election years — incumbent years and non–incumbent years. An incumbent year is when America has an incumbent president who is eligible to run for another term — and usually does. I think the last such incumbent who chose not to seek another term was Lyndon Johnson in 1968. Three other presidents in the 20th century made the decision not to seek another term when they legally could have — Theodore Roosevelt in 1908, Calvin Coolidge in 1928 and Harry Truman in 1952.

(Truman was president when the 22nd Amendment was ratified. He had served nearly two full terms by 1952, having succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945, but the amendment made the specific point that it would not apply to whoever was president upon its ratification.)

Since we always have an incumbent, the matter of eligibility would seem to be the determining factor, but it isn't. LBJ's decision, which was largely the product of the public's increasingly sour mood about the war in Vietnam, not to seek another term as president instantly turned 1968 into a non–incumbent year. That's a year when the incumbent is not on the ballot in the general election, whether by choice or circumstance.

In recent times, non–incumbent years have tended to favor the nominee of the out–of–power party because those years have come when the incumbent usually is ineligible to seek another term.

It wasn't always that way. For whatever reason, it seems to have been largely a byproduct of World War II that parties almost never win three straight national elections. At least, that's when this pattern emerged. Before that, victories tended to come in bunches. Democrats won five straight elections between 1932 and 1948. The Republicans won the three elections prior to that — and 11 of 15 between 1860 and 1916.

Of course, it was after World War II ended when the 22nd Amendment limiting presidents to two full terms in office was ratified, and that was a game changer. Few presidents were tempted to seek a third term before the amendment was ratified, but it was always a possibility. Since the 22nd Amendment was ratified, it has been generally understood that, after winning his second term, a president gradually slips into irrelevance, essentially becoming a lame duck the day he takes the oath of office for the second time. Maybe that explains the pattern that has emerged in the last 67 years.

Since Harry Truman's "upset" victory in 1948, Americans have voted for the same party's nominees for president three straight times only once — in 1988 when Vice President George H.W. Bush was elected to succeed Ronald Reagan. Otherwise, it has been so predictable you could set your calendar by it.

Bush was helped by the fact that President Reagan was still popular after eight years in office — Gallup had Reagan at 51% approval just before the 1988 election — but the popularity of the incumbent does not necessarily help the nominee of the president's party.

Prior to the 2000 election, Bill Clinton's approval rating was between 59% and 62%. Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, narrowly won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote — in large part because he did not take advantage of Clinton's popularity and political skills during his campaign against George W. Bush.

Of course, if the incumbent's popularity is below 50%, his party's nominee to replace him is probably toast before the convention adjourns. George W. Bush's approval ratings were mostly in the 20s just before the 2008 election, which John McCain lost in a modest landslide.

And Lyndon Johnson's approval rating just before the 1968 election (42%) almost precisely mirrored Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey's share of the popular vote — and 1968 turned out to be a cliffhanger but only because independent candidate George Wallace was on the ballot.

Spinning Willie Horton

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It is my opinion that what happened on this day 25 years ago was what drove a racial wedge into the heart of America that persists to modern times.

Well, that may be a little extreme. A lot of people and a lot of events over a long period of time have contributed to the polarized state of race relations in this country. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that what happened on this day a quarter century ago played a key role in the erosion of modern race relations.

On this day in 1988, the first of the so–called "Willie Horton ads" aired on TV.

If you're under 35, let me tell you who Willie Horton is/was.

Willie Horton is a black man, a native of South Carolina who was convicted of a 1974 murder in Massachusetts and sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole.

However, in 1986, he was released as part of a weekend furlough program, but he didn't return when the weekend was over. Less than a year later, he raped a woman in Maryland after attacking her fiance. He was captured and convicted, then sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus 85 years. The judge who sentenced him pointedly refused to return him to Massachusetts.

Horton is still incarcerated in Maryland.

Michael Dukakis, the Democrats' 1988 nominee for the presidency, was governor of Massachusetts when Horton was released. Dukakis did not start the furlough program, but he did support it.

The original policy began under a Republican governor in 1972, but first–degree murderers weren't eligible. After the state's Supreme Court ruled that the privilege should be extended to first–degree murderers, the state's legislature passed a bill denying furloughs to such convicts.

Dukakis vetoed the bill, and the furlough program remained in effect until 1988.

So Dukakis clearly bore some responsibility for the program, and the first to mention it during the 1988 campaign actually was one of Dukakis' rivals for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee. Gore brought it up during a debate prior to the New York primary, but he asked a general question and never mentioned Horton's name.

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The name was known to the Bush campaign, especially campaign manager Lee Atwater, who was responsible for most of the negative campaigning the Republicans did that year. Late that spring, a group of Republican consultants met with a focus group made up of Democrats who had voted for Reagan four years earlier, and they told the consultants they needed take a negative approach to Dukakis.

For Atwater, it was like a mandate to do whatever it took to win, but he needed the green light to proceed — and he got it but gradually. He wasn't the original spin doctor — that concept originated in the fields of public relations and advertising — but, in his lifetime, he was probably the most effective at applying the spin doctor's tactics to politics.

In June, Bush mentioned Horton by name in a speech to the Texas Republican convention.

And 25 years ago today, Americans for Bush, part of the National Security Political Action Committee, first aired a commercial called "Weekend Passes," which identified Horton and what he had done while free.

The ad was taken off the air two weeks later — on the day that Dan Quayle and Lloyd Bentsen met in the vice presidential debate. The Bush campaign began running its own ad, "Revolving Door," which did not mention Horton by name.

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But it didn't have to. His name was already pretty well known around the country by then.

Most of the "inmates" in the commercial were white — but there were a couple of strategically positioned black actors.

It was a not–so–subtle reminder of Horton and his criminal record.

Bentsen and civil rights leaders criticized Bush's campaign and called the ads racist. Bush denied the charge.

While I definitely think race was used by the Republicans in 1988, the fact is that it was only one aspect of the Bush campaign, which was very aggressive and extremely negative. The Bush campaign of 1988 was not above distorting the facts, any facts, and Dukakis was simply ineffective at countering.

For example, the Republicans ran a negative commercial about the condition of Boston Harbor, implying that it was Dukakis' fault when the truth was that the policies that created the situation were promoted by administrations of both parties.

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In 1988, the Republicans had been on the ropes before the conventions, and they played hardball during the fall campaign — even after polls showed public sentiment swinging in their direction.

The turning point may have come a week before the first Horton ad made its debut, when the Republican campaign turned Michael Dukakis' ill–fated tank ride into a devastating commercial.

The Republicans held nothing back in 1988.

And Atwater especially wasn't above using anything to win. He insisted he would "strip the bark off the little bastard (Dukakis)" and "make Willie Horton his running mate."

Atwater certainly bears some responsibility for the state of modern race relations in America. And, near the end of his life in 1991, he did seem to be trying to make amends in a LIFE magazine article in which he apologized to Dukakis for the "naked cruelty" of the 1988 campaign.

But even then and under those circumstances, I was inclined to take anything that Atwater said with a grain of salt.

Ed Rollins, manager of the Reagan–Bush re–election campaign, confirmed the necessity of such a policy in a book about Atwater in which he said this about the last days of Atwater's life:

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"[Atwater] was telling this story about how a Living Bible was what was giving him faith and I said to Mary (Matalin), 'I really, sincerely hope that he found peace.' She said, 'Ed, when we were cleaning up his things afterwards, the Bible was still wrapped in the cellophane and had never been taken out of the package,' which just told you everything there was. He was spinning right to the end."

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Atwater probably would tell you that perception is everything.

Three Was a Crowd in 1992

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In 1992, nationally televised debates between the major party nominees for president were still a fairly recent development in American politics.

Vice presidential debates were newer still. The first televised presidential debates were in 1960, and the first vice presidential debate was in 1976.

But, what happened in 1992 was a first that has been unmatched in presidential debate history. The debates that year featured three participants, not two.

And the debate that was held 20 years ago tonight on the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta was even more groundbreaking. It was only the fourth time that vice presidential candidates had met in a debate (the vice presidential candidates did not debate in 1980), and it was the first (and, so far, only) time that the vice presidential debate featured three participants.

The Perot–Stockdale ticket really shook things up in 1992. In November, nearly 20 million people voted for it. (No state actually voted for Perot, although political historians will point out that the Perot–Stockdale ticket finished slightly ahead of the Bush–Quayle ticket in Maine that year.)

And it was kind of a weird night two decades ago — the night of the 1992 vice presidential debate.

In part, it was a vindication of the low expectations theory in which a debate participant is said to benefit from low expectations because just about anything good that happens for him/her during the debate will be seen as a triumph.

And, if enough good things — or, at least, enough not bad things — happen, an upset victory in the debate can be claimed — and accepted as plausible by most viewers.

For Vice President Dan Quayle, it probably couldn't have worked out much better. Widely viewed as a lightweight — and with the memory of his epic putdown by Sen. Lloyd Bentsen in the vice presidential debate four years earlier still reasonably fresh in the public's minds — expectations were very low for Quayle.

In comparison to the public's pre–debate expectations, Quayle triumphed in his 1992 debate, and my memory is that a plurality at least saw him as the debate's winner.

But, in my memory and the memories of most observers, what lingers is not the image of an unexpectedly deft and skillful debate performance by Quayle but rather an embarrassingly poor one by Admiral James Stockdale.

To be fair to Stockdale, it wasn't really his fault.

A national three–person debate had only occurred once — a few days earlier, when the presidential candidates debated — and it wasn't even decided until roughly a week before the running mates debated that Stockdale would be allowed to participate.

Stockdale, one of the Navy's most decorated officers, was a rather late addition to Perot's campaign as well, but he was thought by many political observers to bring a certain amount of gravitas, at least in foreign affairs, to the ticket via his military career.

But he was still largely unknown to many Americans.

So, on this night 20 years ago, Stockdale sought to capitalize a bit on his status as the unknown candidate. "Who am I? Why am I here?" he began his opening statement, paving the way for a clever introduction of himself to the viewers.

The problem was that he sort of ran out of gas — or, to borrow a phrase Stockdale later used to explain the abrupt conclusion of one of his answers, he was "out of ammo."

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Thus, a distinguished veteran with a lifetime's worth of service to his country was reduced to a punch line, and nowhere were the jokes more biting than on Saturday Night Live.

Practically since its debut in 1975, SNL has made a name for itself poking fun at political figures, especially in debates. In that category, I would say that SNL has established itself as the gold standard. For more than 35 years, a presidential election campaign has not been complete until SNL parodies at least one of its debates.

After Stockdale's performance, though, SNL's writers apparently decided to poke fun at it but not to mimic it directly.

The result was savagely funny.

Perot (portrayed by Dana Carvey) and Stockdale (Phil Hartman) were going for a post–debate ride in the country — a "joyride," Perot/Carvey called it.

But Perot's true objective was to ditch Stockdale out in the sticks.

It didn't work, however, as Perot learned, to his chagrin, "never try to ditch a war hero — tenacious with a capital T."

Admiral Stockdale died in 2005.

Re-nominating Clinton

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1996 Democratic National Convention-Clinton Acceptance Speech
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It's ironic now, when one watches footage from the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago 15 years ago, to see and hear Bill Clinton thanking the delegates for entrusting him with the presidential nomination again.

It's ironic when one realizes that, at that time, Clinton was already involved in the relationship with Monica Lewinsky that would threaten to undermine his second term.

From the perspective of 2011, it's hard to look back at Clinton's second term and not see many ways in which trust was violated — and, as a result, much of a presidency was squandered.

But, on this night in 1996, he was the earnest Bill Clinton I remember from my days in Arkansas. When I lived there, he was defeated in his first bid for re–election, in part because he approved a modest increase in license tag fees.

As I say, the increase was modest, but voters perceived an almost cavalier attitude in Clinton and punished him for it. When he ran for governor the next time around, he publicly apologized to the voters for the increase.

Raising state revenue in the midst of what was then the worst economy since the Depression was necessary, but he still apologized "because so many of you were hurt by it."

Perhaps he didn't realize — or perhaps he chose to ignore — that the decisions elected officials make can influence the voters in many ways — especially those decisions that are intended to be known by only a few people because that is precisely the kind of thing that tends to leak out.

Anyway, as just about anyone old enough to remember the late 1990s will tell you, the revelation of Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky became the foundation of the impeachment charges that paralyzed his presidency.

The — ahem — moral seems clear: If you want your private life to remain private, don't run for office.

It is a reminder, I guess, that elected office — especially the presidency — is a sacred trust. The voters entrust the powers of the presidency to select individuals, and that carries with it certain expectations — of behavior, of policy direction, of a lot of things.

And it's darn near impossible now to listen to Clinton recite his administration's economic accomplishments — i.e., the millions of jobs that were created in his first term — and not feel somewhat wistful after one makes the inevitable mental comparisons to the current economic situation.

Because my roots are in Arkansas, I often feel — justifiably, too, I might add — that I grew up with Bill Clinton. It seemed he was always in office, mostly as governor.

He is quite a bit older than I am, but we both came from small towns in Arkansas (my hometown is considerably larger now, Clinton's is marginally so), and, when he describes his boyhood in his memoir, "My Life," he could be describing mine as well.

After I became old enough to vote, I supported Clinton every time he was on the ballot in the years I lived in Arkansas. Sure, I had heard the stories about his infidelity, but, from what I could see, if there was any truth to the stories, he did a good job of keeping his personal and public lives separate from one another.

No one asked me about Monica Lewinsky in 1996. Nobody had heard her name. That was something that came out after Clinton had been sworn in for a second time.

In 1996, if someone had asked me about Clinton's private life, I would have said that it did not seem to have had any kind of influence on his job performance. I didn't approve of the idea of a president who was unfaithful to his spouse, but I figured that, as long as it didn't affect his job performance, it was not my business.

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Going into the Democratic convention in Chicago 15 years ago today, there were some Republicans who complained that the vice president, Al Gore, was too wooden, too stiff — which always struck me as a weak complaint, a nitpicky kind of thing.

The sort of thing one quibbles over when one has no more arrows in one's quiver.

At the convention, Gore poked a little fun at himself, using the enormously popular "Macarena" song to do so.

Because much of the party's platform and other business were addressed ahead of time, the delegates to that convention had little else to do while they waited for the speakers so they danced to the "Macarena." The television cameras showed them dancing on several occasions, and Gore mentioned it during his speech.

Then he pretended to do his version of the "Macarena" — standing perfectly still (only his eyes moved) — and then asked, "Would you like to see it again?"

The crowd roared.

Seldom in modern memory had Democrats gathered for a national convention in such a jovial mood. Certainly, their last convention in Chicago — the one that nominated Hubert Humphrey in 1968 — had not been a pleasant experience.

And why shouldn't they be jovial? Clinton's job approval ratings had been in the 50s most of the year, and all indications were that he would be re–elected.

And he was.

Head for the Mountains

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Back before George W. Bush's father was Ronald Reagan's running mate, "Head for the mountains" was the commercial pitch for Busch beer.

It may well have been the perfect advice for those who opposed Bush's ascension to the presidency in 2000.

If you were around in those days, I guess I don't have to remind you of the national ordeal that Americans went through in the five weeks between Election Day and this day, when the Supreme Court, after narrowly voting to halt the recount in Florida, effectively awarded the state — and, with it, the election — to Bush.

Recrimination was in the air long before the Democrats took a severe beating on Election Day last month, but it only makes sense, really, to put blame where it rightfully belongs — on the doorsteps of the five U.S. Supreme Court justices who halted the Florida recount with Bush narrowly leading Al Gore.

I suppose things started innocently enough. Bush's initial lead over Gore in Florida was less than 2,000 votes. Percentage–wise, the margin was narrow enough to qualify for a state–mandated machine recount.

That recount only took a few days. When it was done, though, Bush's lead had dwindled to a few hundred votes, and Gore requested a manual recount in four counties that typically voted for Democrats.

The recounts began, but they were being held in heavily populated counties, and officials feared the recounts could not be completed in time to meet the state's seven–day deadline for certifying election results. The Florida Circuit Court decided that the certified results had to be submitted by the deadline, but amended returns could be submitted later.

As it turned out, one of the counties completed its manual recount before the deadline. The recounts continued for the other three.

Well, one thing led to another. There was a lot of wrangling on both sides, a lot of hyperbole on both sides. There were legal challenges and counter–challenges.

The concept of "every vote counts" seemed to have been lost in the pursuit of victory at any price.

And, through it all, there was the concern that the next president needed time to make his transition. January 20, after all, was less than six weeks away.

In his memoir "My Life," the outgoing president, Bill Clinton, wrote, "If Gore had been ahead in the vote count and Bush behind, there's not a doubt in my mind that the same Supreme Court would have voted 9–0 to [re]count the vote and I would have supported the decision. ... Bush v. Gore will go down in history as one of the worst decisions the Supreme Court ever made, along with the Dred Scott case."

It was a terrible decision. Eventually, it may be seen to have caused as much — or nearly as much — damage to the nation as the Dred Scott case to which Clinton referred.

The Election That Wouldn't End

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If you're over 20 — and you weren't stranded on a desert island 10 years ago — you must remember what happened on this day in 2000 — or, at least, the series of events that were set in motion on this day.

I am speaking about the 2000 presidential election — the closest election, at least in terms of the electoral vote, in more than a century and, ultimately, one of only a handful of presidential elections in American history in which the winner of the popular vote was not the winner of the electoral vote.

In the history books, it all comes down to the dispute over the state of Florida. I guess it is accurate to say that although there were some smaller states that remained too close to call for another day or two. The fight for the Florida electors was the one that decided the election.

After most states had been called for either candidate on that Election Night, Vice President Al Gore was only a few electoral votes away from victory. But one big state, Florida, remained too close to call. If it went to Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the son of the former president, he would be the president–elect.

The initial count gave Bush a narrow lead, and the networks declared the state — and, consequently, the election — in Bush's favor, but the networks soon withdrew their projections when the outcome proved to be inconclusive.

It turned out the vote was close enough that a state–mandated recount was necessary, and that led to a bizarre parade of almost surreal images from Florida — of poll judges meticulously examining paper ballots for "hanging, dimpled or pregnant chads" that might provide some clue as to the intentions of the voters.

About five weeks after the voters went to the polls, the Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that the originally certified results, which had narrowly favored Bush, should hold. Consequently, Bush won the state's electoral votes and the election, but Gore won the popular vote.

As I say, the history books give Florida center stage in the drama, a slot it certainly did occupy throughout November and into December in 2000, but it is erroneous to believe that Florida alone decided what happened.

In no particular order

• Ralph Nader was blamed by some for Gore's defeat, particularly in Florida.
  
  As Columbia University's Dr. Manning Marable observes, most of Nader's support was thought to have come at Gore's expense. In Florida, where Nader received nearly 100,000 votes while Gore lost the state to Bush by a few hundred, that prospect was particularly tempting for the role of scapegoat.
  
  In Florida, Democrats muddied the waters by alleging that the combination of Nader's presence on the ballot and some confusing voting procedures in some counties, like the "butterfly ballot," produced unique problems.
  
  But Marable observes that Nader received most of his votes in states that were not competitive, and Marable asserts — correctly — that Gore was largely responsible for his own defeat.
  
  Gore's home state of Tennessee voted for both him and his father in Senate races, and it voted for the Clinton–Gore ticket twice in the 1990s. But, in 2000, Gore lost Tennessee by four times as many votes as Nader received there.
  
  It was the first time in nearly 30 years that a major party's presidential nominee had failed to carry his home state.
  
  Gore also lost the state of West Virginia, which had not voted for a non–incumbent Republican since it voted for Herbert Hoover in 1928. It has now done so twice in the last 10 years, but, in 2000, the only Republicans who had carried West Virginia in the previous 72 years were incumbents seeking re–election — Eisenhower in 1956, Nixon in 1972, Reagan in 1984.
  
  As Marable pointed out in 2001, "Had Gore carried either his own home state, or even West Virginia, he would be president today."
• I'm not sure, however, if I agree with Marable's assessment of the three things that were at the heart of Gore's defeat — his decision to distance himself from Bill Clinton, his inability to address the concerns of those who voted for Nader and what Marable called "the bankruptcy and failure of the 'New Democrat' strategy."
  
  On the first point, I definitely agree. Gore declined to use what may have been the most valuable campaign asset he had — his boss, President Clinton.
  
  A decade later, Clinton is still second to no one, not even the current president, at energizing a Democratic crowd — but, in 2000, he was still the president. He had presided over a budget surplus. He had a 60% approval rating.
  
  And Air Force One — and all the other props that come with the presidency — were still his to use.
  
  Gore may well have been squeamish about utilizing Clinton so soon after his impeachment trial, during which his relationship with a White House intern played an unseemly role, but he was not the pragmatic politician that Clinton was if he failed to recognize Clinton's value on the campaign trail.
  
  And, as a result, I tend to think he may never have had the qualities of a good president to begin with.
  
  Jacob Weisberg, writing in Slate the day after the election, agreed it was a mistake not to "embrace the accomplishments record of the Clinton administration."
  
  Weisberg also criticized the Gore personality, which was criticized earlier in his political career as wooden. To me, he seemed more relaxed as vice president, but, when he sought the presidency in 2000, Weisberg wrote, "There's something about Gore's public personality that's just plain hard to take."
  
  While I supported Gore in that election, I have to admit that there is a certain amount of truth in that. If nothing else, it seems to explain Weisberg's third criticism, which was "[i]n the wake of a successful centrist presidency and the best economy in memory, Gore adopted an angry populism as the tone of his campaign. Michael Kinsley aptly characterized this stance as 'You've never had it so good, and I'm mad as hell about it.' "
  
  It did seem uncomfortably inappropriate, Gore's justification for distancing himself from a president who brought prosperity to the nation but set a bad example in his personal behavior.
  
  I'm also inclined to agree with Marable that Gore failed to address the concerns of the Nader constituency. He largely underestimated it and, as Marable observes, ignored it.
  
  But I'm not sure I agree that the "New Democrat" strategy was bankrupted by 2000, merely eight years after it was unveiled. Perhaps it depends on your perspective.
  
  I don't think the message was faulty. Perhaps it was the messenger.

In hindsight, yes, the Bush administration was a disaster for this country.

Was Gore at fault? Yes, to a certain degree.

Was Nader at fault? Not as much as some would have you believe.

More than anything, it seems to me the 2000 election was an argument against the continued use of the Electoral College.

If the president had been chosen strictly on the basis of the popular vote in 2000, Gore would have won. He received more than half a million votes more than Bush — and joined a rather exclusive club of presidential candidates who won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote.

Presidential Debates

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It may seem, at times, that presidential debates are a given, but they are really a recent phenomenon in American politics. Forty–nine years ago today, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon met in the first televised presidential debate in Chicago.

Television was still somewhat primitive in 1960, and the Kennedy–Nixon debates proved to be a split decision. Voters who watched on television thought Kennedy won while those who listened on radio thought Nixon won. The debates received credit, perhaps unfairly, for tipping the balance in what was the closest presidential election of the 20th century.

I have been studying the presidency most of my life, and I recall reading very little about the Kennedy–Nixon debates, except for the conclusion that Kennedy appeared rested and robust while Nixon — who, to be fair, had been hospitalized prior to the first debate — came across as haggard.

Historian Robert Dallek writes, in "An Unfinished Life," that Kennedy was eager to debate Nixon. He wanted to persuade voters that he was not too young or inexperienced, and direct competition with Nixon was the best way to achieve that. On the other hand, President Eisenhower advised Nixon not to debate, reasoning that Nixon already was better known and had eight years of executive experience as Ike's vice president.

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"But Nixon relished confrontations with adversaries and, remembering his successful appearance before the TV cameras in the 1952 campaign (his Checkers speech — in response to allegations of accepting illegal gifts — was the most successful use of television by an American politician to that date), he agreed to four debates."

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Nixon was elected president twice, in 1968 and 1972, but he never debated his opponents again. The memory of the experience of 1960 remained fresh in his mind, perhaps because the image of him that viewers took was not so fresh. Dallek writes that Chicago Mayor Richard Daley said of Nixon, "They've embalmed him before he even died."

Sometimes I wonder if either Kennedy or Nixon had any idea, on that September night in 1960, of the Pandora's box they had opened.

It didn't open completely for awhile. Presidential candidates did not debate again for 16 years. Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford resumed the practice on Sept. 24, 1976, and their first debate was noteworthy for an audio problem that interrupted things for nearly half an hour.

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In their next encounter, President Ford uttered a gaffe that dominated news reports and may have helped Carter win the election. If nothing else, the Carter–Ford debates inspired a tradition on the nascent, one–year–old Saturday Night Live of satirical skits based on the debates, and presidential candidates have obliged SNL's writers with plenty of material ever since.

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Four years later, Carter had only one debate with his challenger, Ronald Reagan, about a week before the election, but the most memorable moments were Reagan's, and he ultimately won the election.

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In 1984, many of the most memorable moments in the debates between Reagan and former Vice President Walter Mondale belonged to Mondale. But that didn't help him in the election, in which Reagan carried 49 states.

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When George H.W. Bush ran against Michael Dukakis in 1988, Dukakis came across as unemotional when asked if he would favor the death penalty for a hypothetical assailant who was convicted of raping and murdering his wife.

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But the most memorable moment from the 1988 debates came when the vice presidential candidates, Lloyd Bentsen and Dan Quayle, had their only encounter.

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The 1992 debates provided a new twist on the theme. For the first time, a third–party candidate, Ross Perot, was allowed to participate. But the most memorable moment came in a "town hall format" — the first of its kind in presidential debates — when the candidates were asked how the economy had affected them.

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I can't really say there were any particularly memorable moments from Bill Clinton's debates with Bob Dole in 1996. Clinton's victory almost seemed a foregone conclusion. But Dole's age (he was 73) was always an issue in the campaign, even if it wasn't mentioned.

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In 2000, there were many jokes made about Al Gore's audible sighing and frequent references to "lockbox," just as there were jokes made about George W. Bush's references to "fuzzy math." In the end, though, I wonder if many votes were swayed by the televised encounters.

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The same could be wondered about the Bush–Kerry debates in 2004 or the Obama–McCain debates last year. But both provided more than their share of humorous moments for SNL and MadTV.

As technology has become more sophisticated, presidential debates have become more entertainment than anything else. Viewers watch, hoping to see one of the candidates stumble, not unlike those who watch hockey games hoping to see a fight break out on the ice.

Are presidential debates still relevant? Do voters learn anything from seeing the major candidates discuss the issues?

Obama's Challenge

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"We stand at the edge of a New Frontier — the frontier of unfulfilled hopes and dreams. Beyond that frontier are uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered problems of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus."

Sen. John F. Kennedy,
Democratic presidential candidate,
July 14, 1960 acceptance speech

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In a few hours, Barack Obama will give his nomination acceptance speech.

And when he does, we will live in a new America, one that I wonder if even John F. Kennedy could have imagined on that July night in 1960 — an America in which it is no longer a "dream" (to coopt a word that Dr. Martin Luther King used frequently in his famous speech in Washington 45 years ago today) for a black American to be nominated for president.

(I suspect, however, that, if someone had asked Kennedy which party would be the first to nominate a black for president, he wouldn't have hesitated in saying that the Democrats would be the first to achieve that milestone.)

That's about as much of the American dream as can be pledged to anyone. All Americans are promised the right to participate — not necessarily to succeed.

Success (in any endeavor) depends on things like effort and desire — as well as some things that are beyond an individual's control.

And, while success can be defined as winning the nomination (especially when no one from your demographic group has won the nomination before), a presidential nominee should not be satisfied with that achievement alone.

(It is possible to win a nomination, lose the election, and later be renominated and go on to victory the second time — Richard Nixon proved that when he was elected in 1968 after losing to John F. Kennedy in 1960.

(For that matter, Andrew Jackson was renominated in 1828, four years after losing the first time, and was elected. Grover Cleveland was nominated in three consecutive elections, winning in 1884, losing in 1888, and winning again in 1892 — he's still the only president elected to two non-consecutive terms in office, although he won the popular vote all three times).

(But much more common in the American political experience have been people like Bob Dole, Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale — candidates who were nominated for president once, lost and were not nominated again. Apparently, John Kerry and Al Gore are destined for that fate as well.)

Tonight's final session of the 2008 Democratic National Convention will be held at Invesco Field, where the Denver Broncos play their football games. The first three sessions of the convention were held indoors at the Pepsi Center, which is home to basketball's Denver Nuggets.

Clearly, the Invesco Field audience will be appreciably larger than the one that greeted Obama's wife on Monday night or Bill and Hillary Clinton for their speeches on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

The TV audience might well be larger than the others, too, although that (obviously) won't be affected by the venue. The schedule of speakers clearly has something to do with it. According to the Weekly Standard, the Nielsen ratings for the convention revealed that Tuesday night's viewership went up 16% over the previous night.

Based on that, Hillary Clinton was a bigger draw than Michelle Obama.

"Tonight’s Obama-Palooza at Invesco Field should smash all the old records," says the Weekly Standard, "if for no other reason just to see if the Democratic nominee wears a toga to match the Greek columns."

In what is sure to draw comparisons from political observers, Obama's acceptance speech will be the first delivered outdoors by a Democrat since John Kennedy's 1960 acceptance speech — the "New Frontier" speech, as it has come to be known, that Kennedy gave at Los Angeles' Memorial Coliseum.

Former Vice President Al Gore, who was being urged to run for president again nearly a year ago, also is scheduled to deliver a speech tonight.

Obama faces some challenges tonight, as Kennedy did half a century ago.

Kennedy, as a Catholic, had to convince a largely Protestant electorate that he could be trusted. Obama, as the first black presidential nominee, has to do the same with a predominantly white electorate.

Kennedy's challenge differed a bit. In the world of 1960, in which there was a very limited number of political primaries as well as limited private ownership of television sets, it was necessary to use an event like a national convention to introduce himself to the public.

Obama won his nomination in an information-obsessed world — one in which an entire generation of voters has grown up with cell phones, personal computers and cable and satellite TV. It is not as vital to Obama's quest to make introducing himself one of the goals of tonight's speech.

Most viewers will already be familiar with much of Obama's personal story. Many of them will know far less about his positions on the issues.

Of course, like every nominee of the party that is out of power, Obama must present a list of problems that have not been adequately addressed by the incumbent administration.

It won't be enough to say that electing John McCain would mean "four more years of the same." That may be true, but voters need to hear specifics about the problems and what Obama wants to do to correct them.

And that's the "red meat" the delegates want, too.

They need details.

By the way ...

While we're on the subject of details, the Republicans have eagerly used the events of September 11, 2001, for their own political purposes in the last seven years — including their selection of both the location (New York) and timing (early September) of their 2004 national convention.

But the Democrats may have the edge this time when it comes to using that event.

The city of Denver didn't figure prominently in the tragic events of September 11. But the stadium in which Obama will speak tonight was the site of an NFL game for the very first time on Monday night, Sept. 10, 2001 — only a few hours before the hijackings began.

And the team that visited Denver that night was none other than the New York Giants.

(I've often wondered how many conversations about the Giants' 31-20 loss in that game were interrupted the next morning on New York's trains, subways and buses by reports — or actual sightings — of the carnage at the World Trade Center.)

The Republican convention, which is going to be held in St. Paul, Minn., won't lack its own ties to September 11.

Zacarias Moussaoui, who was convicted of being part of the 9-11 conspiracy, had some flight training in Eagan, Minnesota, which is only a few miles from St. Paul.

But, although Moussaoui reportedly was considered by Osama bin Laden for the role of the so-called "20th hijacker," investigations have been able to conclusively determine only that he was a member of al-Qaeda.

While he was convicted on conspiracy charges that related to the 9-11 attacks, apparently, he was rejected as a member of the hijacking teams because he had not yet learned to fly adequately. (As a matter of fact, he already was in custody in Minnesota on the day of the hijackings.)

He is serving his sentence in a federal maximum security prison in Florence, Colo., which is about 100 miles south of Denver.

Obama's Choice for Veep

The word is out.

Everyone is saying that Barack Obama is about to decide on his running mate.

Hmmm. The Democratic Convention begins a week from today.

Other than the fact that the Summer Olympics will be in progress until Sunday (therefore creating a bit of a distraction in the news media), I don't think you have to be psychic to conclude that Obama would need to make his choice soon.

• CNN says Obama is "expected to end the guessing game this week."
  
  And CNN's blog, Political Ticker, says Sen. Joe Biden is likely to be the choice.
• Jake Tapper of ABC News reports that Biden "may have become the front-runner," although he hesitates to dismiss Kaine as a possibility.
  
  "On the downside," writes Tapper, "an Obama-Kaine ticket would have two candidates who are so new to the national arena that they could be attacked for being light on experience."
  
  (Er, um, but Biden has been in the Senate for 36 years. Isn't that a little too status quo for this year's ticket? Where would "change" fit into that equation?)
  
  Tapper also reports that his colleague, George Stephanopoulos, now sees Hillary Clinton as a dark horse for the veep slot, rating "50:1" odds.
  
  (Many of Clinton's supporters believe that she earned a spot on the ticket with her strong showing in the primaries. But it doesn't work that way. I know John Edwards was the second-place finisher in 2004, but it was John Kerry's decision to put him on the ticket. It wasn't something Edwards earned. This decision is Barack Obama's to make.)
• Ben Smith and Glenn Thrush agree in Politico that Obama will make his announcement this week.
  
  But they are making no commitments on who the choice will be.
  
  They observe that Obama was scheduled to campaign with Gov. Bill Richardson today in New Mexico (where Hillary Clinton made an appearance yesterday, urging her supporters in New Mexico to "work as hard for Sen. Obama as you worked for me") and with Virginia's current and former governors, Tim Kaine (incumbent) and Mark Warner (now a candidate for U.S. Senate), later in the week.
  
  Observers now seem to think, however, that Warner's selection as the convention's keynote speaker will adversely affect fellow Virginian Kaine's chances of being Obama's running mate.
• Dan Balz reports, in the Washington Post's The Trail blog, that Obama has narrowed his list to five prospects — Biden, Kaine, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius — and he says that speculation on the fifth name is centering on Richardson, Chris Dodd and Jack Reed.
• If Obama doesn't bring enough experience to the ticket, the New Republic's blog The Stump has a name with eight years' worth of vice presidential gravitas — former Vice President Al Gore.
  
  A word of caution, though — Al might be a little old for a redux of that bus tour thing.
  
  Of course, come to think of it, Biden is older than Gore is. And so is Dodd. And so is Richardson.
  
  Sebelius is about Gore's age. And Reed is a little younger — but not much.
  
  Bayh is a comparative youngster at 52 (53 by Inauguration Day). And Kaine is the youngest of all, at 50.

Meanwhile, Matthew Yglesias writes, in the Think Progress blog, that it's time to abolish the vice presidency.

What? And give up the opportunity to speculate wildly — sometimes on both parties' running mates — for weeks every four years?

My goodness, what would the pundits do with all that time on their hands?

Gore Visits Bush

As far as I know, it was the first time the two men have spent much time together since the 2000 election and Inauguration Day in 2001.

But former Vice President Al Gore, as one of the 2007 Nobel Prize winners for his work on global warming, came to the White House today for a photo and some presidential conversation.

Gore spent 40 minutes meeting with George W. Bush in the Oval Office. Neither Bush nor his aides would comment on the meeting, and all Gore will say is that the discussion was entirely about global warming.

When Gore was announced as a Nobel Prize winner, there was talk almost immediately about how it gave a boost to Gore's prospects for winning next year's Democratic presidential nomination. But that was nearly two months ago and Gore has made no efforts, as far as I can see, to make another run for the White House.

I think it would be unwise, at this point, for Gore to jump into the race. If he is the focus of a genuine draft movement that arises as the result of a hopelessly deadlocked Democratic campaign, that's another matter. But, at the moment, the Democrats don't face that kind of deadlock.

Gore Wins Nobel Prize

Former Vice President Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize today. Actually, he shares it with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- but they were both honored for their work to warn people of the dangers of global warming.

"This is a chance to elevate global consciousness about the challenges that we face now," Gore said in Palo Alto, Calif. "It truly is a planetary emergency, and we have to respond quickly."

Gore is not the first American politician to be so honored. Former President Jimmy Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Then-Vice President Charles Dawes (who served under Calvin Coolidge) was honored in 1925. Then-President Woodrow Wilson was a recipient of the award in 1919 for promoting the League of Nations. And another incumbent president, Theodore Roosevelt, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for his collaboration on peace treaties.

The announcement has further energized the "Draft Gore" movement, which seeks to get the former vice president into the race for the presidency. Could it be that Jim Rutenberg contributed to that effort in today's New York Times? His article, headlined "Prize Caps Year of Highs for Gore," reads like a promo for a potential Gore advertisement.

Time's Bryan Walsh suggests that 2007 may be remembered as a tipping point in the environmentalist movement.

Mike Allen of The Politico points out that winning the Nobel Peace Prize heightens the drumbeat of White House speculation -- and Gore and his people don't seem too eager to blunt it in any way. There is also talk of a more influential, more important post for Gore in a possible Hillary Clinton administration -- if he chooses not to enter the race for the nomination.

"The Nobel Peace Prize rewards three decades of Vice President Gore's prescient and compelling -- and often lonely -- advocacy for the future of the earth," presidential candidate John Edwards, one of Gore's potential rivals for the nomination, said in a statement.

Also among the American recipients of the prestigious prize are

* former Secretary of State Elihu Root (1912)
* former Secretary of State Frank Kellogg (1929);
* international president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Jane Addams, who shared it with former Columbia University president and former Republican vice presidential candidate Nicholas Butler (1931);
* former Secretary of State Cordell Hull (1945);
* honorary international president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Emily Balch, who shared it with chairman of the International Missionary Council and president of the World Alliance of Young Men's Christian Associations John Mott (1946);
* Ralph Bunche (1950);
* former Secretary of State and former Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall, for the Marshall Plan (1953);
* Linus Pauling, for his campaign against nuclear weapons testing (1962);
* Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1964);
* Norman Borlaug (1970);
* then-Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger (1973);
* and author Elie Wiesel (1986).

Al Gore

Draftgore.com is increasing its efforts to get Al Gore into the 2008 race, insisting he's the Democrats' best chance to win back the White House from the Republicans.

A full-page ad in the New York Times today made that very proposal, and an article in Newsweek suggests that a Nobel Prize might be the thing to get him into the race.

Will Gore get into the race? Can he halt Hillary's momentum and grab the nomination?

Or is it too late for someone else to get into the race -- and have any hope of winning?