September 26, 1960 was the first presidential debate in the United States to be televised live. Vice President Richard Nixon entered into a debate with Senator John F. Kennedy. The debate was watched live by 70 million Americans. The impact of television changed the way presidential campaigns would be run. Before 1960, there were candidates who debated and there were candidates who appeared on television. There were candidates who appeared in public at prearranged events or who traveled the country by train to meet with voters. But most voters had never had the chance to see candidates in real life. Television brought candidates into people's living rooms.
When Nixon arrived for the debate, he looked ill. He had been hospitalized shortly before because of a knee injury. The vice president again injured his knee as he entered the TV station. Nixon refused make-up arranged by the organization. Kennedy also refused, but had his own team do his makeup just before the debate began. Moreover, he was tanned from campaigning in the southern states. The result was that Kennedy looked good, while Nixon looked pale and tired.
Polls
The next day, polls showed that according to television viewers, Kennedy had won the debate and had become the slight favorite for the election. There were three other debates between Nixon and Kennedy that fall that we usually hear much less about because the impact was less. A healthier Nixon was thought to have won two of them and the last debate was a tie. However, the last three debates were watched by 20 million fewer people than the September debate.. Kennedy narrowly defeated Nixon in November.
In 1963, the first television debate between the list leaders for the Lower House elections was organized in the Netherlands. In a series of four broadcasts, spread over two weeks and three broadcasters, politicians had the opportunity to question each other under the direction of the editor-in-chief of Elsevier, Ferry Hoogendijk. Unfortunately, no footage has survived of these debates. On March 22, 1966, on the eve of the Provincial Council elections, the chairmen of the five largest parties participated in a special broadcast of AVRO's Televizier. This debate has gone down in history as "Hoogendijk's class" because the party leaders sat next to each other in school desks. There is still footage of this at Beeld en Geluid in Hilversum.
60 years later
This week at international press center Nieuwspoort, there was a lecture by my good friend Willem Post entitled "The assassination and the myth: John F. Kennedy 60 years after the fact. Nearly a hundred attendees, many of whom still remember where they were when they first heard about the assassination, listened intently to the historian and publicist talk about the legacy of JFK, the man who became president of America thanks to television.
Since 1963, Nov. 22 has been a historic day. On that day, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in the city of Dallas, Texas. For years, I have been reading and watching everything that is loose and secret about the assassination of John F. Kennedy on the afternoon of Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, when he had been president for less than three years. l became fascinated with JFK's charisma at a young age and immersed myself in his time over the years. Almost a decade ago, I visited the crime scene: Daley Plaza, where a cross is painted on the pavement at the spot where the first bullet struck.
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, with much information about his life, is in Boston, Massachusetts, where he began his political career. But the Texas School Book Depository, from which Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy, also houses an interesting museum, where there is much to learn about the assassination, what preceded and followed it and the many conspiracy theories that still circulate, as well as his legacy. How JFK stood up for the rights of dark-skinned Americans. How he gave impetus to space travel and to art and culture.
Impact debates
So Kennedy is the man who showed us how great the impact of televised election debates can be. There are many examples of this. In 1980, former film actor Ronald Reagan took on incumbent President Jimmy Carter. With one-liners like "there you go again," he managed to win the debate. In the 2010 Lower House elections in the Netherlands, it appeared that Diederik Samsom, too, had understood the power of that phrase when he told Mark Rutte, "Now you're doing it again."
Debates can make or break a candidate. Ronald Reagan has often been described as "the great communicator. And rightly so. The camera loved Reagan, and as an actor, he knew better than anyone the power and might of television. In 1984, the year of his re-election, the president was supreme in the debate with his Democratic challenger Walter Mondale. Henry Trewhitt, journalist for The Baltimore Sun, brought up in the debate Reagan's age (then 73), at that time the oldest president ever in U.S. history. He referred to President John F. Kennedy, who during the Cuba crisis had to negotiate for days with very little sleep. 'Is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able to function in those circumstances?' Reagan: 'Not at all. And I want you to know that I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.' The audience roared with laughter. Even Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale (then 56) couldn't help but laugh along. And as Reagan took a sip of water, he knew that with this joke he had knocked an important weapon out of his opponents' hands.
Kaagbaan
In recent weeks it has been suggested in the Netherlands that election debates should be more substantive. Pieter Omtzigt is even said to have doubted whether he should participate. It may be a wish of some politicians, but in a debate the power of one-liners and good examples is enormous. I can't imagine that participants in debates don't prepare well for it. Geert Wilders (PVV) is a master at it. When he told the previous Lower House campaign that Sigrid Kaag (D66), who profiled herself as green, had flown so much that Schiphol had even named the Kaagbaan after her, everyone knew that this was not true, but he scored points with it.
November 22 is election day, and for the Netherlands that could be a historic day. Not only because it will be exactly sixty years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, but because then we will know which politicians convinced the voters the most. The televised debates will play an important role in this.
Frits Huffnagel, co-founder of Castro Communicatie