house officials did a terrible job of preparing the president. giving him too many facts and failing to organize his answers. one top official said mr. reagan did four mock debates and every time was as bad as he was last night. as mr. reagan celebrated columbus day, aides expect his lead to shrink with democrats pushing back to mondale. they won t change, s. for them the worst thing is a strong reagan performance might have clinched the election. what happened last night gave the democrats new life. any of that sound familiar? that was our nation s third try of having an incumbent president debate on tv against his challenger. the incumbent was ronald reagan and got his clock cleaned by mondale. trying to win the first debates against their challengers was 0-3. the next time an incumbent president is facing a challenger is 1992.
0-2. then there s 1984. at this point the incumbent president is ronald reagan and his challenger is the mighty, mighty walter mondale. you can call him fritz. you know, we look back at reagan versus mondale in 1984 as reagan having dominated mondale because he did beat him so soundly when it came to election day. we re not talking about election day. we re talking about that first debate and in terms of that first debate it was completely the opposite of the way it was on election day. watch. good evening, i m tom brokaw with nbc nightly news. a lot of people in most of the instant polls believe walter mondale won an important battle against president reagan last night. in this corner at a feisty 170 pounds, the new heavyweight debater of the world at a tumultuous rally mondale claimed the debate breathed new life into his campaign. today we have a brand new
race. today everything is different. reporter: while not claiming a flood of overnight conversions, mondale s aides argue millions of voters finally are listening to mondale and rethinking their support for reagan. the seemingly unstoppable reagan bandwagon hit a bad rut last night and the president seemed to know it. asked who won the debate as he left kentucky, all he said was, i m smiling. at a north carolina rally, mr. reagan brought up the debate, himself, and was downbeat. whether i won them or not, i ve i know now that i have won the fruits of victory because i get to be with all of you. reporter: the real campaigning though, was done by the reagan staff trying to limit damage from the debate. last night officials who seldom return reporters phone calls swarmed over the press saying mondale needed a knockout and got only a draw. there was even some finger pointing in the reagan camp. top campaign officials say white