Presidential Debates: Their Power, Problems, and Promise.

• Author: Barnes, Fred

Presidential Debates: Their Power, Problems, and Promise. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, David S. Birdsell. Oxford University Press, $19.95. Presidential campaign debates are like White House press conferences-they're not much, but they're all we've got. We learn more from what the candidates say inadvertently in debates than from what they say intentionally. But what do we learn? That's hard to tell. I was a panelist in the first Reagan-Mondale debate in 1984, and I asked both candidates about taxes and the role of religion in public life. Their answers were lifeless snippets from their campaign speeches or full -blown efforts at saying nothing and thus avoiding a gaffe. The only moment of spontaneity came when Reagan was asked why, as a professed Christian, he never goes to church. Reagan said any church he attended might be blown up (presumably by terrorists), and he didn't want to inconvenience the parishioners. An interesting answer, but what did it reveal about Reagan's character or his ability to govern effectively? Four years later, I still haven't figured that out.

In this brief (256 pages) book, Jamieson and Birdsell give a nice rundown of how presidential debates evolved and how they should be changed: the press panel should be scrapped in favor of a conversational...