As I was telling a friend in Latin America, we have not always had debates in the U.S.  In fact, we didn't from 1788 to 1960.     They did not happen again from 1964 to 1976.  I've often wondered what an LBJ-Goldwater debate would have looked like.  My guess is that LBJ would not have won with 60% of the vote.  It would have been a lot closer, because Senator Goldwater was really an extremely serious man and not the monster the LBJ campaign made of him. In 1976, I recall that President Ford challenged Governor Carter to debates.  It happened during the 1976 acceptance speech, or a time when he was down in double-digits and putting the party back together.   As you may know, Governor Carter accepted, and we had three serious debates with one line about Poland that President Ford had to take back.      For most of us, it was the first time we seen such a debate since the famous Nixon-Kennedy debates of...(Read Full Post)