President Obama’s advisers are talking a lot about Ronald Reagan today. No, the Democratic president is not about to embrace the Gipper’s conservative Republican philosophy. Team Obama is hoping that the current president becomes the first incumbent president since Reagan in 1984 to come back from a weak debate performance with a strong rebound in Debate Two.
But that hasn’t happened often.
In fact, only once. By Ronald Reagan.
Let’s take a look at second debate performances by past incumbents:
Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford debate.
1976: Gerald Ford
The incumbent president, trailing in the polls, followed up a lackluster performance in the first debate in Philadelphia with a disastrous performance at the campaign’s second debate in San Francisco. President Ford incorrectly asserted that Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter “would look with sympathy to a Communist government in NATO,” such as Italy. His later answer to a question from Max Frankel of the New York Times about the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe may have proven fatal to his re-election hopes:
I don’t believe, uh — Mr. Frankel, that, uh – the Yugoslavians consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. I don’t believe that the Romanians consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. I don’t believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. Each of those countries is independent, autonomous: It has its own territorial integrity and the United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union.
1980: Jimmy Carter
This time Carter was the embattled president. He had turned in a mediocre performance in the first presidential debate, which also featured Republican Ronald Reagan and independent John Anderson. The second debate, in Cleveland, was a one-on-one encounter between the major party nominees. Carter was relentless in his attacks on Reagan’s record, portraying the former California governor as an extremist. He was less clear in his responses to questions about his own record, such as his handling of the ongoing hostage crisis in Tehran. Barbara Walters asked both candidates about the Iran situation. Carter talked in circles. Reagan answered this way:
Barbara, you’ve asked that question twice. I think you ought to have at least one answer to it.
Later, Reagan delivered an off-handed retort to a Carter attack on health-care policy, and it became an instant classic: “There you go again.” Two-thirds of Americans thought Reagan won the debate, and he went on to win the election by 51 percent to 41 percent.
Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale face off. (Ronald Reagan Library)
1984: Ronald Reagan
This time, the incumbent president staged a dramatic comeback in the second debate. After a listless performance in the first debate in Louisville, which included some uncharacteristically rambling answers, Republican Reagan faced questions in the media about whether he was, at age 73, too old to serve another four years. At the second debate in Kansas City, Henry Trewhitt of the Baltimore Sun asked Democratic nominee Walter Mondale: “Should the president’s age and stamina be an issue in the political campaign?” Mondale’s response: “No. And I have not made it an issue, nor should it be.”
But Trewhitt didn’t let go of the question, and this exchange with Ronald Reagan became a defining moment in the campaign:
Q: Mr. President, I want to raise an issue that I think has been lurking out there for 2 or 3 weeks and cast it specifically in national security terms. You already are the oldest President in history. And some of your staff say you were tired after your most recent encounter with Mr. Mondale. I recall yet that President Kennedy had to go for days on end with very little sleep during the Cuban missile crisis. Is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able to function in such circumstances?
A: Not at all, Mr. Trewhitt, and I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience. [Laughter and applause] If I still have time, I might add, Mr. Trewhitt, I might add that it was Seneca or it was Cicero, I don’t know which, that said, “If it was not for the elders correcting the mistakes of the young, there would be no state.”
Reagan’s dynamic performance erased many people’s doubts about his age, and he soon regained a 20-point advantage over his Democratic challenger in presidential polls.
1992: George H.W. Bush
Post-debate polls declared independent candidate Ross Perot the winner of the first presidential debate of 1992, with incumbent Republican George Bush running a distant third behind Bill Clinton. Perot’s needling clearly got under Bush’s skin. The president’s weak showing increased the pressure on him to rebound at a town hall debate in Richmond. But Bush was even more distracted in that encounter, at one point gazing at his watch as Perot went on and on with an answer. The moment reinforced the message of the Clinton-Gore ticket: “It’s time for them to go!”
But even more devastating to Bush was a question from an audience member about how the record-breaking national debt had affected him personally.
George Bush and Ross Perot gesture to each other as Bill Clinton speaks. (AP photo)
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I think the national debt affects everybody.
AUDIENCE QUESTIONER: You personally.
BUSH: Obviously it has a lot to do with interest rates –
MODERATOR CAROLE SIMPSON: She’s saying, “you personally”
AUDIENCE QUESTIONER: You, on a personal basis — how has it affected you?
SIMPSON: Has it affected you personally?
BUSH: I’m sure it has. I love my grandchildren –
AUDIENCE QUESTIONER: How?
BUSH: I want to think that they’re going to be able to afford an education. I think that that’s an important part of being a parent. If the question — maybe I — get it wrong. Are you suggesting that if somebody has means that the national debt doesn’t affect them?
In contrast, Clinton felt the Virginia woman’s pain:
SIMPSON: Governor Clinton.
BILL CLINTON: Tell me how it’s affected you again.
AUDIENCE QUESTIONER: Um –
CLINTON: You know people who’ve lost their jobs and lost their homes?
AUDIENCE QUESTIONER: Well, yeah, uh-huh.
CLINTON: Well, I’ve been governor of a small state for 12 years. I’ll tell you how it’s affected me. Every year Congress and the president sign laws that make us do more things and gives us less money to do it with. I see people in my state, middle class people — their taxes have gone up in Washington and their services have gone down while the wealthy have gotten tax cuts.
I have seen what’s happened in this last 4 years when — in my state, when people lose their jobs there’s a good chance I’ll know them by their names. When a factory closes, I know the people who ran it. When the businesses go bankrupt, I know them…
AUDIENCE QUESTIONER: Thank you.
1996: Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton was the only incumbent president of the modern debate era to have been viewed as the winner of a first debate. Post-debate polls also showed him the victor over Republican challenger Bob Dole by a wide margin in the second debate. From his very first words in the San Diego town hall, Dole let moderator Jim Lehrer know he’d rather be somewhere else: “Thank you very much, Jim. Let me first give you a sports update. The Braves 1; the Cardinals 0, early on.”
2004: George W. Bush
Incumbent Republican Bush’s narrow lead over Democrat John Kerry was jeopardized by Kerry’s superior performance at the campaign’s first debate. But he was on the defensive for much of the second debate for his conduct of the Iraq war and the search for Osama bin Laden. In response to a question at the town hall in St. Louis, Kerry told the audience member:
The right war was Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan. That was the right place. And the right time was Tora Bora, when we had him cornered in the mountains.
Now, everyone in the world knows that there were no weapons of mass destruction. That was the reason Congress gave him the authority to use force, not after excuse to get rid of the regime.
Now we have to succeed. I’ve always said that. I have been consistent. Yes, we have to succeed, and I have a better plan to help us do it.
In response, Bush declared, “It’s a fundamental misunderstanding to say that the war on terror is only Osama bin Laden.” Post-debate polls gave the nod once again to Kerry. But despite his three consecutive debate victories, Bush edged Kerry at the only poll that matters, 51 percent to 48 percent.