WASHINGTON – It could be a well-rehearsed comment or an improvised, too-loud sigh.
Notable moments of previous presidential debates demonstrate how candidates’ words and body language can make them seem especially relatable or hopelessly out of touch. They can also show candidates at the top of their political game or suggest they are at sea.
Will the past be prologue when President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump debate in Atlanta on Thursday?
“Debates, being live television events, unscripted, without any way of knowing how they will evolve – anything can happen,” said Alan Schroeder, author of “Presidential Debates: 50 Years of High-Stakes TV.”
Here’s a look at some high moments, low moments and hurdles from past presidential debates.
When everyone knows a sensitive question is coming, but you make the answer seem spontaneous, you’re having a good debate. Republican President Ronald Reagan drew a lasting line in the second presidential debate of 1984 after a dismal opening confrontation.
Reagan was 73 years old and seeking a second term in his race against Democratic opponent Walter Mondale, then 56 years old. In the first debate, Reagan had difficulty remembering facts and occasionally appeared confused.
One of his top advisers, Nevada Senator Paul Laxalt, later suggested that aides “filled his head with so many facts and figures that he lost spontaneity.”
Therefore, the Reagan team took a more low-key approach to their second confrontation with Mondale. And when Reagan was asked a question about his physical and mental toughness that he knew was coming, he was ready enough to make the answer seem unplanned.
“You are already the oldest president in history,” moderator Henry Trewhitt said before asking whether Reagan would be able to handle a challenge like the Cuban missile crisis.
“Not at all,” responded Reagan in defense of his intelligence in crisis management. He continued softly, “I want you to know that I won’t make age an issue in this campaign either. I will not exploit, for political purposes, the youth and inexperience of my opponent.”
Then, taking advantage of years of comedic training perfected in Hollywood, the president took a sip of water, giving the audience and even Mondale, who also burst out laughing, more time to laugh. Finally he smiled and left little doubt that he had rehearsed a response, adding: “It was Seneca, or it was Cicero, I don’t know which, who said, ‘If it were not for the elders correcting the errors of the young, there would be no state. ‘”
Years later, Mondale said that although viewers saw him laughing, “I think if you get close, you’ll see some tears coming down, because I knew he took me there. That was really the end of my campaign that night.”
Reagan thus proved that, even at his age, a candidate can improve over time. And with this year’s race pitting 81-year-old Biden against 78-year-old Trump, 73 doesn’t seem so old anymore.
Reagan is also remembered for using a light touch to defuse criticism from Democratic President Jimmy Carter in a 1980 debate.
When Carter accused him of wanting to cut Medicare, Reagan chided, “There you go again.” The phrase worked so well that he turned it into something of a trademarked retort going forward.
In 1976, Republican President Gerald Ford had a remarkable moment during his second debate against Carter – and not in a good way. The president declared that “there is no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration.”
With Moscow controlling much of that part of the world, moderator Max Frankel responded: “I’m sorry, what..?” and asked if he had understood correctly. Ford stood by his response and then spent days on the campaign trail trying to explain it. He lost that November.
“The closer the election gets, the more important comments and lines of debate may matter,” said Aaron Kall, director of the debate program at the University of Michigan. “Not just about who won or who lost, but how it impacts fundraising, how it impacts the media cycle in the days and weeks ahead.”
Not all lip slips have a devastating impact.
So-Sen. Barack Obama, in a debate in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, said dismissively to Hillary Clinton: “You’re quite nice, Hillary.” This arrogant response provoked a backlash, but Obama recovered.
The same could not be said of the then-Texas governor’s short-lived Republican White House bid in 2012. Rick Perry. Despite repeated attempts and excruciatingly long pauses, Perry could not remember the third of the three federal agencies he had promised to close if he were elected.
Finally, he timidly muttered, “Oops.”
The Department of Energy was what came to mind.
Another damaging moment opened the second presidential debate in 1988, when CNN anchor Bernard Shaw pressed Democrat Michael Dukakis, governor of Massachusetts, on his opposition to capital punishment with a question that evoked the candidate’s wife.
“If Kitty Dukakis was raped and murdered, would you be in favor of an irrevocable death penalty for her killer?” Shaw asked. Dukakis showed little emotion as he responded, “I don’t see any evidence that it’s a deterrent.”
Dukakis later said he wished he had said that his wife “is the most precious thing, her and my family, that I have in this world.”
That year’s vice presidential debate featured one of the most remembered and pre-planned lines.
When Dan Quayle, the Republican vice presidential nominee and senator from Indiana, compared himself to John F. Kennedy while debating Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, the Democrat was ready. He studied Quayle’s campaign and saw him invoke Kennedy in the past.
“Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I met Jack Kennedy,” Bentsen began slowly and deliberately, drawing out the moment. “Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.
The audience exploded in applause and laughter. Quayle stared straight ahead.
Quayle and George HW Bush still easily won the 1988 election. But they lost in 1992, after then-President Bush was caught on camera looking at his watch while Democrat Bill Clinton spoke to an audience member during a House debate. Municipal. Some thought this made Bush appear bored and indifferent.
In another case of nonverbal debate error, then-Democratic Vice President Al Gore was criticized for a poor performance in the 2000 opening debate with Republican George W. Bush, in which he sighed repeatedly and very audibly.
During the second town hall-style debate, Gore stood so close to Bush as the Republican answered a question that Bush finally looked up and nodded confidently, eliciting laughter from the audience.
A similar moment occurred in 2016, when Hillary Clinton faced the audience to answer questions during her second debate with Trump. The Republican candidate walked up behind her, narrowed his eyes and frowned.
Clinton offered no visible reaction at the time, but later wrote of the incident: “He was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled.”
Thursday’s confrontation will be the first time that a current president will debate a former president.
Historically, incumbents have sometimes struggled during initial debates. They are used to being surrounded by White House advisers who offer little resistance. In 2012, then-President Obama’s first seemingly impartial performance in the debate against Mitt Romney allowed the Republican to gain momentum.
Romney, however, had an awkward moment during the second debate.
Responding to a question about equal pay for men and women, the former Massachusetts governor talked about going to women’s groups for help finding qualified candidates for top jobs in the state.
“They brought us entire briefcases full of women,” he declared. Obama turned this into a line of attack at subsequent rallies, saying cheerfully, “We don’t need to collect a bunch of portfolios to find qualified, talented, motivated young women. ”
If Biden’s debate skills are rusty this time, his opponent’s may be too. Trump skipped all of the GOP primary debates this time around, meaning he hasn’t done any since facing Biden twice in 2020.
Trump interrupted so frequently when they first debated four years ago that Biden ended up shouting, “Will you shut up, man?” – a visceral moment if there ever was one. Trump is remembered that night for instructing members of the far right Proud boys group from the stage to “stand back and wait”. Some members of the extremist group interpreted this as a sign of encouragement.
O second Biden-Trump debate 2020 saw producers cut microphones to discourage interruption, making it less chaotic. It featured Biden wistfully declaring, “I’m looking forward to having this race. I look forward to seeing that happen.”
That happened. And now it’s happening again.
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