2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumIt's not an exact parallel, but in 1980 Jimmy Carter refused to debate John Anderson
Reagan and Anderson debated. Not debating hurt Carter.
Then, the League ruled that the polls showed that he had met the qualification threshold and said he would appear in the debates.[30]
Fall Edit
This set off a controversy. Carter said that he would not appear on stage with Anderson, and sat out the debate, which hurt the President in the eyes of voters. Reagan and Anderson had a debate in Baltimore on September 21, 1980. Anderson did well, and polls showed he won a modest debate victory over Reagan. But Reagan, who had been portrayed by Carter throughout the campaign as something of a warmonger, proved to be a reasonable candidate and carried himself well in the debate. The debate was Anderson's big opportunity. He needed a break-out performance, but what he got was a modest victory. In the following weeks, Anderson slowly faded out of the picture with his support dropping from 16% to 1012% in the first half of October. By the end of the month, Reagan debated Carter alone and Anderson's support continued to fade. Although Reagan would win a sizable victory, the polls showed the two major party candidates closer (Gallup's final poll was 47448[31]) going into the election and it was clear that many would-be Anderson supporters were now supporting their second choice. In the end, Anderson finished with just under 7% of the vote.[32]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Anderson#1980_Presidential_campaign
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)Whoosh
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)This is what happens. When there's already a winner and a loser, the winner refuses to debate the loser and pretends they don't exist.
brush
(53,467 posts)were the nominees of their party.
Neither was the runner-up of their respective parties trying to usurp the leading candidate.
cali
(114,904 posts)Maybe Clinton should debate Cruz?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)brush
(53,467 posts)but for what? Nobody is interested in two runner-ups blathering on.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)this is optics