Skip to footer

Presidential debate: 7 defining moments in history (+video)

From Ronald Reagan’s one-liner, “There you go again,” to Al Gore’s heavy sighs and eye rolls, zingers and mannerisms can define a presidential debate even more than the candidates’ positions on critical issues. Here is a look back at seven defining debate moments.

2000: George W. Bush vs. Al Gore

The first debate between Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Gore resulted in another defining gesture – the vice president’s overt sighs and eye rolls during Governor Bush’s responses.

Gore "sighed heavily and repeatedly. He shook his head, frowned, rolled his eyes, and sneered," wrote Lehrer in his book "Tension City.”

“Gore was judged the clear loser in the debate, based almost entirely on his body language and not on what he actually said," he added.

Although Gore tried to change his style for the next two debates, he could not escape the first debate mannerisms – the late-night comedy shows repeatedly mocked them.

Bush also had a defining moment in his quip about Gore’s “fuzzy math.”

“I'm beginning to think not only did he invent the Internet, but he invented the calculator. It's fuzzy math,” Bush said during the first debate.

He used the term “fuzzy math” to deflect Gore’s criticisms of Bush’s plans for tax cuts, Medicare, and how to spend the budget surplus.

6 of 7
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.