A Glimmer in the Vast Wasteland

[Commentary] The debates are an institution now, and among the most watched television events in America. They are one place in the modern campaign — perhaps the only place — where the voter is treated with respect.

They are the one time when the major candidates appear together side by side under conditions they do not control. They are a relief from the nasty commercials that dominate the campaign, fed by donations that are effectively unlimited and anonymous. Broadcasters provide the television time for the debates, without commercials, as a rare public service. I have been privileged to participate in some form in all 27 presidential and 8 vice presidential debates so far. In 1960, I helped my boss, the former Illinois governor and presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson, persuade Congress to exempt debates from the equal-time law, making it possible for broadcasters to cover them without having to include every candidate for the presidency, no matter how marginal. (Congress failed to provide the same exemption in 1964, 1968 and 1972, so there were no debates those years.) After the Federal Communications Commission acted to exempt the debates from the equal-time law, the League of Women Voters revived the debates, in 1976, and asked me to help.

Let me suggest that after you watch the debate, you turn off your television set and do your best to avoid the spin that will follow. Talk about what you saw and heard with your family, your friends, your neighbors, your co-workers. You are smarter than the spinners. It’s your decision that matters on Nov. 6, not theirs.