Courtesy of Pam Martens.
Mitt Romney and President Obama in Their First Presidential Debate, October 3, 2012
Fifty-two years after the first televised Presidential debate, it’s stunning to see how little has changed. The first debate was sponsored by the three corporate networks, ABC, CBS, NBC. Those major networks still exist today. The first debate was between candidates from the two major parties – Republican and Democrat – which still control elections today. And the content of the debate, 52 years later, still centers around a Democrat believing that government has a critical role in helping to improve the health, education and well being of its citizens and a Republican ensconced in the view that government is the problem.
In last night’s debate, Republican candidate Mitt Romney repeated his party’s mantra — “free people and free enterprises, doing things together.” He said President Obama had a policy that equated to “trickle-down government.”
Except for the sweat that dripped profusely from Richard Nixon’s face and the impassioned resonance of John F. Kennedy’s words, last night was a replay of a scene that’s getting very old and very tiresome to the majority of Americans who believe that government not only has a role in delivering a level playing field to society but should have the essential role in regulating business. Most Americans believe that debate should have been settled long ago and that we stagnate as a country when it continues to dominate the dialogue of every election cycle.
John Kennedy and Richard Nixon in the First Televised Presidential Debate, September 26, 1960
On September 26, 1960, approximately 70 million U.S. viewers turned on their televisions to watch the first ever Presidential debate in Chicago, Illinois. On the stage was Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Vice President Richard Nixon. As the debate proceeded, Kennedy was calm, focused and armed with facts. Nixon, who had recently been in the hospital for knee surgery, looked underweight and pale. As the debate wore on, with something of a Saturday Night Live quality to it, Nixon began to visibly perspire, wiping his face with a handkerchief when the camera moved to Kennedy.
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