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Romney's Debate Win Is True To History

Alexis Miller |
October 5, 2012 | 1:17 p.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

President Obama's notably uncharacteristic performance on Wednesday's debate seems to be not just a failure on his part, but also a special combination of bad luck.

The two debate series between President Obama and Gov. Romney is only the tenth televised debate between two presidential candidates. However, it is only the seventh time that an incumbent President has faced a challenger in a televised debate, according to MSNBC.

Democrats blaming Obama's campaign and the campaign blaming the White House staff for a poor debate performance is a sad, broken record.

Historically,in the past six presidential first debates between a sitting president and an challenger, the challenger has trounced the president.

Starting in 1976, the year of the first televised presidential debate, Jimmy Carter had a better performance than incumbent Gerald Ford. In 1980 Reagan exhibited his excellent debate skills against the sitting president, Jimmy Carter.

Surprisingly in the next presidential election, Walter Mondale destroyed President Reagan on their first debate. Mondale was later dubbed a "debate heavyweight" by running mate Geraldine Ferraro. However, this first debate win didn't translate into an electoral win. In fact, Reagan rallied to win the election in a landslide.

Moving on to the election of 1992, the first debate was between President Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot. Astonishingly Perot went down as the first debate winner in this first series, even though he failed to stay in the race. The 1992 first debate models the 2012 first debate when it comes to the performance of both sitting presidents. Bush Senior's party blamed his staff for not prepping him enough, which is the same criticism that Obama's campaign now faces.

The only first debate that a sitting president has actually won since 1976 is the 1996 debate between former President Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. In this debate, Clinton proved to be the master speaker he is now known as--he also won the election.

In 2004, former President George W. Bush faced off against John Kerry. Kerry's excellent debate performance has also been lost in history, overshadowed by his devastating loss to the incumbent president.

Now comes the 2012 debate cycle. Challenger Mitt Romney will go down as winning the first debate, but President Obama isn't in bad company. The record is in his favor: six past incumbent losses to one challenger win.

The President is still a contender in this race. It is time to see if Romney's debate performance will also be lost in history, or if he will be able to capitalize on his great debate performance and unseat President Obama.

 

Reach Staff Reporter Alexis Miller here.



 

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