Viewpoint
The problem with presidential debates
By Monica Reilly | December 10The year is 1960. In a blur of Cold War anxieties and lunch counter sit-ins, viewers await the presidential debate with bated breath. The assertion that this was the first televised presidential debate is technically false — that distinction belongs to former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Sen. Margaret Chase Smith in 1956. Nevertheless, it is true that Americans in 1960 saw, for the first time in the nation’s history, two presidential candidates arguing important issues on live television.
