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Louis Menand discusses the larger issues of Presidential stagecraft
"It was TV more than anything else that turned the tide," John F. Kennedy said on November 12, 1960, four days after his election to the presidency. He was referring to the four televised debates between him and Richard Nixon, broadcast earlier that fall. Television debates are now nearly an official rite of passage in a politician's progress to the presidency. Holding a presidential election today without a television debate would seem almost undemocratic, as though voters were being cheated by the omission of some relevant test, some necessary submission to mass scrutiny.
That's not ...