Profs and Pints Online presents: “The Debate of the Century,” a look at how Kennedy vs. Nixon changed American presidential politics, with Allen Pietrobon, assistant professor of Global Affairs at Trinity Washington University and former professorial lecturer of history at American University.

On the eve of the first presidential debate of 2020, take a journey back through time at a pivotal presidential contest that helped get us to the point where we are now.

The 2016 presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump broke records with nearly 85 million viewers. That’s near Super Bowl levels. But despite drawing record viewers, it was far from the most important debate in American history.

That title belongs to the first-ever televised presidential debate, between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960. The result was seen as being so disastrous for Nixon, who was regarded of having “won” the debate, but looked so terrible on the television screen compared to Kennedy’s radiance that it impacted him negatively. Afraid that inconsequential TV optics might undermine their otherwise strong performances, it would be 16 years before presidential candidates agreed to debate live on TV again.

Join Professor Allen Pietrobon, a Profs and Pints audience favorite, as he takes us back to the Eisenhower Era, a time before the “celebrity president.” We will examine the lives and backgrounds of John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, and we’ll see how Kennedy became president by dominating the television narrative and using innovative campaign techniques that set the model for presidential election campaigns to this very day.

It was also an election that was plagued by allegations of voter fraud, rigged counts, and problematic absentee voting. When it became clear that Kennedy only won by 113,000 votes, outraged Republicans grew convinced that cheating had tipped the election and lobbied for an investigation.

We’ll look not just at the 1960 televised debates, but this fraught election in general, to see what we can learn as we head into the 2020 presidential debate season. (This talk will remain available in recorded form.]

Profs & Pints Online: The Debate of the Century