Lincoln and Douglas were made of sterner stuff

By KAREN PARKER

Retired County Line Publisher

Take a deep breath. It’s just two more weeks until we march to the polls and bring a merciful end to those political attack ads and the even more tedious yard signs (please bring back the pink flamingos).

If you think the caliber of today’s candidates fall far short of the statesmen of the past, you may be correct, particularly if you use debates as one measure of political engagement.

The debate plate is lean this season. Despite constant offers from his competitor, Derrick Van Orden has indicated he has no intention of meeting Brad Pfaff for a debate prior to the election. Our senate and gubernatorial candidates held just one televised debate. And cowardice spreads to both sides of the aisle. In Arizona, Democrat Katie Hobbs refuses to meet her competitor for the Arizona governor, Kari Lake. Hobbs says Lake is an election denier and the debate would be a spectacle. Yeah, so?

Luckily, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas were made of sterner stuff. Nine — count ‘em, NINE! They held nine debates, offering one in every congressional district in Illinois. Douglas was the sitting senator, and Lincoln wanted his seat; historians speculated he thought the publicity might give him a boost for his eventual bid for the presidency while giving the public a heads up on the fledgling Republican Party. 

The two men had sparred over the future of slavery when Lincoln had served in the House of Representatives. Douglas had favored letting the new territories awaiting statehood to vote on allowing slavery, while Lincoln opposed any further expansion of the institution. 

There was no TV in those days, but newspapers covered it intensely. The state’s largest newspapers, from Chicago, sent stenographers to report complete texts of each debate. Halfway through each debate, runners were handed the stenographers’ notes. They raced for the next train to Chicago, handing them to riding stenographers who during the journey converted the shorthand back into words, producing a transcript ready for the Chicago typesetter and for the telegrapher, who sent it to the rest of the country (east of the Rockies) as soon as it arrived. The papers published the speeches in full, sometimes within hours of their delivery. 

Fast forward a century, and presidential candidates John Kennedy and Richard Nixon met for four debates. Although common now, this was the first-ever presidential debate and the first ever on television. And there were just three major networks in 1960, with most everyone tuned in. I am old enough to recall those debates, but I was too young to pay much attention. My folks had always voted for Eisenhower, but I suspect Nixon did not impress them much. It was a disaster for Nixon, who refused makeup and who sweated profusely under the hot lights. 

His light-gray suit faded into the backdrop of the set and seemed to match his skin tone. Reacting to this, his mother immediately called him to and asked whether he was sick. Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley in an interview said: “My God, they’ve embalmed him before he even died.” 

Clearly, candidates have become far more savvy about the nuances of “performing” on television. But that does not mean they want to. In the top five senate races in 2010, there were 17 debates. This year, the number dropped to six, according to the Brookings Institute, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C. 

This year the Republican National Committee announced it would no longer participate in the non-partisan presidential debate committee. Which is kind of silly, as it is up to the candidates themselves if they wish to debate. 

But the Brookings Institute suggests it may be the candidates themselves whose political calculus is that a debate may harm them more than help. Just as they now give interviews to friendly news sources that toss softball questions. 

Alas, this strands voters on quicksand, leaving them to believe the nonsense of attack commercials or just vote “R” or “D” no matter the character of qualifications of the candidate. The Brookings Institute put it best:

“Debates recenter policy in campaigns. They force candidates to exhibit their intellectual and policy mettle, putting them incontrovertibly on the record. Away from teleprompters and the curation of aides, candidates are left to the wilds of their understanding of the pertinent issues and their ability to convey their vision to the listening electorate. Voters see in direct juxtaposition the people and ideas competing to represent them.”

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