Weekend at Bidey’s

I don’t think I need to wait for the polls.

Last week’s 2024 presidential campaign debate is likely to be the most debated debate since the JFK-Nixon bout I watched with my family on a black and white TV the night of September 26, 1960. Those of us with TVs thought JFK had won. Those who listened on radio thought Nixon had.

Anyone curious about what Presidential debates were like before the United States lost its mind might read the transcript of that first debate. Watching two intelligent leaders with distinctly different ideologies able to give reasoned, thoughtful, and responsive replies is like a visit to a foreign country. How quickly one forgets what such air used to breathe like.

As with more recent debates, this last week’s was one that few voters actually watched. It had the smallest audience of any first-in-a-series presidential debate this century, about 51 million out of the 155 million potential voters. Of course, that’s 20% better than the ratings for the top week (Season One finale) in the 15-season run of The Apprentice. Democratic commentator Lawrence O’Donnell likes to point out that in the 1980 Carter-Reagan debates, 85 million votes were cast in the presidential election and 80 million people watched on TV. He neglected to mention that in 1980 there was no YouTube, TicToc, Facebook, Snapchat, or Instagram.