Presidential Debates Quotes

“These presidential debates are in essence sixty-second pitched battles, and slow starts are seldom rewarded with come-from-behind victories.”
― Frank Luntz, Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear

“There was a revealing moment in the first presidential debate in September 2008, moderator Jim Lehrer asked the candidates, ‘‘Are you willing to acknowledge, both of this financial crisis is going to affect the way you rule the country as president of the
States?’’Neither McCain nor Obama objected to Lehrer’s phrasing. Both, it seemed,
perfectly comfortable with the idea that it’s the president’s job to ‘‘rule the country.”
― Gene Healy, The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power

“Imagine how the last presidential campaign would have turned out if instead of the marketing circus that we were treated to, we were just given a weekly round table discussion between Bush, Gore, and Nader for a couple months running up to the election. No staged rallies, no TV images with flags flowing in the sunset, no pollsters. No marketing. Bush would have been luck to get two percent.

(from an interview in Attitude, 2002)”
― Matt Wuerker