Will many people watch and will it make a difference to the outcome of the election?
A drive-up presidential debate watch party at Fort Mason in San Francisco, October 2020. Photograph: Jim Wilson/The New York Times
But dismay was at the heart of Angell’s words. The 2020 spectacle was, he said, “grotesquely shattered” by the actions of Trump during the debate. “None of us can be sure now that the precious rite and process will ever be restored.” What has either man left to say that anybody who cares has not already heard a hundred times? Who will watch? Can it and will it make a difference to the outcome of the election? And, perhaps most importantly, will those Americans who tune in do so with the strange, specific intent of verifying for themselves the physical and mental robustness of each candidate?
“This is not the first time someone has been attacked about their age,” she says. “William Henry Harrison was the first American candidate that was ‘marketed’ to the public – he was presented as a war hero, born in a log cabin, a man of the people. In truth, he was a rich kid, raised on a plantation, and the only battle he was near was Tippecanoe, and they turned that into a major win and made ‘Ol Tip’ and ‘Tippecanoe’ Harrison’s nicknames.
“What people forget about President Bush’s re-election campaign against John Kerry is that it was not a forgone conclusion. We were very worried about that race. Every campaign, no matter what they will tell you, will take debates seriously.” Watson believes that the Democratic strategists are quietly confident that Biden has both the discipline and fortitude to perform competently and authoritatively, as he did throughout the state of the union address in early March, which quelled much of the talk about his suitability for office. Merely getting through and avoiding a physical or verbal gaffe, Waston believes, is not the summit for Democratic ambitions.
A quick glance at the highlights of those decades’ old debates reveals at least a surface of decorum between the rivals. Watson instances a famous moment from the vice-presidential debate of 1988, when Dan Quayle likened his youthfulness to that of JFK, allowing his opponent, the Democratic Texan senator Lloyd Bentsen to unforgettably retort: “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.
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