Next hyped the scenes with the cochairs of the commission on president ial debates, mike mccurry and frank. He was president bill clintons press secretary. They talked about the history and the future of the debate format. How the United States differs from other countries and reaching out to younger voters. From the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco this is an hour and 15 minutes. Good evening. And welcome to todays meeting of the Commonwealth Club of california. The place where youre in the know. I am dr. Mary marcy and im the president of Dominican University and a member of the Commonwealth Club board of governors and the moderator of todays program. Can you find us at commonwealthclub. Org and podcasts of past programs. Today its my pleasure to introduce a very interesting and relevant program. Planning is now underway for 2016. Even though we think of these debates as a regular part of the american political theme, few people understand the history and scope and influence. A few facts might provide perspective. U. S. President ial debates are every 4 years 1 of the most watched Television Programs in the United States usually behind only the superbowl, and indeed one of the most programs in the world. Usually theyre around 70 million plus viewers for each of the debates. While its easy to assume the debates have been with us since the Lincoln Douglas debates or the infamous Nixon Kennedy debate in fact their debate and in the assumption debates would be held is refreshingly non partisan event. One of its founders joins us today. Finally, the debates are an inspiration to emerging tkepl contractsies around the world. In the years with out president ial election the commission worked with developing democracies. Well talk about all of these, about the 2012 process and up coming debates and i think we might hear a few stories from our distinguished guests. It is my distinct honor to introduce mike mccurry and frank. Theyre familiar to much of the american public. Mike is probably most familiar to us from his time serving as press secretary to president bill clinton. In addition to that very public role, he has served in a range of high leadership positions since 1984. In addition to working with the u. S. Department of state and for such notable and Significant National leaders as daniel. A graduate of princeton, hes a partner of Public Strategies washington. Frankenstorm is also an Old Washington hand, albeit mostly pitching for the other team. His most visible roles are chairman. Republican party for six of reagans eight years. Leading longer than any person in the 20th century. He was present at the commission of president ial debates, founding this visionary effort in 1986. Hes a graduate of University Nevada reno and school of law at the university of california berkeley. So ill get us started and let you take it from there. Gentlemen, you clearly do not see eye to eye on most political issues. And you lead arguably the most successful non partisan effort in the nation, if not the world, through the commission on president ial debates. Tell us a little bit how that happened . Tell us about the mission and goals and how these fundamentally opposed views came together ill start since i was there at the birth. As you pointed out, mary, most people dont realize we went 16 years from the Nixon Kennedy debate to the next one. There was no way Lindon Johnson was going to allow barry gold water get up on stage with him. He said no way and after Richard Nixons experience in the 1960 debates with kennedy he also was not interested in debate. It wasnt until jerry ford was appointed president and was running against jimmy carter that there was in fact debates. And it started handled by the league of women voters. Four years later most people dont realize that i was at the first debate that was in baltimore. You know who the participants were . Ronald reagan and John Anderson a congressman from illinois. Jimmy carter refused to participate. Anderson was invited because the league of women voters said you had to be at 15 at the polls to participate. Anderson was 16. Jimmy carter said i wont debate if hes in it. Anderson fell at 12 at the second poll and carter and reagan began the debate. That began the Takeoff Point of the debate. In then in 1984 that series of debates had a great deal of controversy with the media because the two candidates were given the right to veto of moderator. In those days they had a moderator and 3 or 4 reporters and the two candidates vetoed over 90 reporters there. Were two independent studies done starting in 1985. One was at the institute of politics at harvard and the other was center of Strategic National studies at georgetown. Both were studying not just the debate process but both of them independently came to the conclusion there should be created an entity. Both groups came to the chairman and me and we created the commissioner in 1986. And we began our 25year run with the first debates in 1988 and have done every debate since. Mary, thats the history, but i think whats behind that history is really important. There were two National Party chairs, paul kirk who is my former employer, and my predecessor is the cochair of the commissioner. And frankenstorm who basically said it is the interest of the American People to set aside our partisan differences as democratic chair and republican chair in order to establish an independent commission that will guarantee the American People will get a look at the major candidates as president whoever they may be and not to Favor One Party or the other party but to make sure we have what we now have become accustomed to having which is face to face encounters between our candidates for president. That act was probably a bipartisan act but in fact kind of a non partisan act is something that is so rare in the culture of our politics now. I mean, i cant imagine the Republican National chairman and the democratic National Chairman getting together on anything these days. But savoring that moment of history in which people did something right for the interest of the whole country is something that we celebrate. The result of that these debates have become more or less institutionalized. It was not given that president ial candidates would debate. My old boss, bill clinton ducked out of one of the debates in 1986 but now over time i thought he had a conflict. [laughter] ive been on both ends of this on the candidates side and now on the commission side, so i know a little bit of the mischief that goes into this. But now, in 2012, was the first time and then barack obama agreed to all three of the debates that we planed and proposed and said, you pick the dates and the format and you pick the venues and well show up. And i think thats an extraordinary achievement and it goes to frankenstorm a tpraeub frafrank we always manied we would wear usa hats and we kept that pledge and thats why were still here. Something to follow up a little bit on wearing the usa hat part. In an area i dont think everyone is aware, the commission is involved in, and thats the commission what they do in off years. We cheer about the commission and theyre are visible during the year of president ial election. There is a tremendous amount of work in using the debates to reach out to other countries when its a nonpresident ial year. Could you talk a little bit about some of that. Let me describe a great occasion we had last week because people say what is this commission on debates do. Youre only busy once every four years. What do you do during the rest of the time. We have a committed staff led by an executive director janet brown and were in partnership with one of the organizations that help promotes democracy around the world. Weve had help theres a group on the republican side that helps us from time to time. Last week we gathered together all of the people who are just like me and frank who are debate commissioners from 19 Different Countries ranking from ive got it. From afghanistan and argentina arch, haiti, hall dove va, nigeria, paraguay. They are all countries which have now institutionalized some form of debates for their National Leadership. Their situations are much different. As we heard the stories last week, sometimes they do their work at gunpoint and therefore a broadcasting entity will air whatever debates they have. Its extraordinary work and everybody came together to share their best practices. Its important for the United States to be humble in situations like this. We learn some new things about techniques and formats and things from some of our partners from around the world who participate in this. The work of this commission now has gone global and we work with others who are in democratic societies and trying to promote the idea that those who seek National Leadership positions ought to get together to of civil discourse and dialogue and come pair their positions and confront each other on the issues that are important to the citizens of that country. Its gotten to the point where the e. U. For the first time will have president ial debates. Ill be going over to europe in september, late september, and meeting with all the parties who are going to be involved in setting up a process for e. U. Debates. Youll recall in National Elections in the u. K. They had their live televised debates can which was something new for them and some of our staff went over to help with the technical aspects of this. In addition to just the fact of getting people together and agreeing theyll come and sit and debate there is enormous technical difficulties in putting these debates on. The older folks in the audience will remember that great debate in 1976, 17 minutes where jerold ford and jimmy carter and the whole lights went out and everything went dark and they didnt have any clue what they were supposed to do. They stood for 17 minutes and didnt say a word to each other. Yeah. Theres a certain symmetry in the worries about National Discourse that were having a discussion with the commission which is serving as an International Model at the Commonwealth Club which is dedicated to civil discourse but it must be an enormous challenge to bring these candidates together and ensure there is a format that is fair and non partisan. We talked about the enormous Television Audience that the debates have and the enormous coverage they receive afterwards. How do the candidates try to gain the system and influence the format . That world has changed. When we started, paul and i used to sit down with the campaign manageers and it was called the debate over the debate. We would get in constant arguments with them back and forth. The candidates started to sign documents among themselves, 3740 page document, and at one time they came and said, you commission you will sign this document and youll get the moderators to sign the document. I told them very politely what they could do with the document. Wasnt very polite. Ha was the last time realistically that we have contacted them. We choose the sights and the dates. We choose the formats and made major changes in the formats this last time around. And we choose the moderators without any input whatsoever from the candidates. Now, some of the media still to this day knows were proponentses we have no contact and nothing do with the Political Parties or the campaigns. We dont get any money from them. We dont get any money from the federal government. We have reached that point. It was always two step forward and one back over 25 years i must tell you of battles. As mike said, both candidates not a word and realistically four years ago both candidates, no difficulty whatsoever with them. Well make some changes. For example, we always believed that the best way to do the debates is seated at a table. Weve done great deal of study and we believe that the nature and tenor of discourse changes when people are seated. Four years ago and just in the past debates, six years ago now, the candidates came to us and said we would like to do one debate at the podium. Well allow them to have input around the margins but not such the tenor and the process. Barack obama may have wished he was not at the podium in denver last time. He wasnt there actually. While the campaigns i worked in National Campaigns and worked with president clinton when he ran for reelection in 96 and with john kerry in 2004, and the campaigns want to tightly control everything about every single aspect of whatever public appearance the candidate will undertake. We basically take a position, if we build it you have to come. We will accommodate you up to some point where if there are logistics or some things that we can tweak in the format that accommodates your interests as campaigns for the presidency, we will try to work with you. But the fundamental thing and the mission of the commission is to make sure we get something there that gives us that glimmer of insight and that moment where we see something about the character, quality of the candidate for the president that really helps us make a decision. A lot of people are obviously in a very polarized political environment and they know who theyre going to work for. But you get insights in these debates and something you say that triggers a moment where can you say i know what this person is like in the oval office. We want these things to have the maximum value from an educational pointed of view for the maximum amount of americans. We are open to how to do it better and. How we moved the process along every four years were constantly looking for ways to improve it and were heavily impacted by things that happened in technology and all the different ways people interact through social media and internet and things that have changed technologically. As a commission well be dealing with on election day 40 of the American People already voted. 40 of the American People already voted on election day. R with early voting in states is the American People want to like the president. And i have a theory and ive talked to mike about this, television lens is very interesting. Some people can go right through that lens, like butter. You have people like Ronald Reagan and people like bill clinton and president obama that get right through t other candidates hit the len and bounce off. They cant get through. For some reason they have trouble communicating. If youre going to be a leader, youve got to be able to communicate and able to get through the lens. So i have always felt doing a series of different formats, televising them a lot of people do listen on the radio. A lot of people listen on radio or listening streaming or whatever they may do. Thats the best way for people to make up their mind and determination as mike says as to whether or not they can see that person being in the oval office, being aleader, standing up to other leaders in the world in negotiations or whatever it may be. I hear the argument. There may be some credibility to it, but i still think the way we do it is from my view is the best way. One of the things that we have whraerlearned from researct the debates is that people, they hear commentary and they hear all the analysis and the pundantry their positions become effected by what they hear in the commentary after the debate. There are studies it if you put people in the room and ask them to just watch and listen to the debate and then record their opinions, its much, much different than whatever they thought coming out of it is different thafr theyve been exposeed and bombarded by all the commentary afterwards. I thought about that a lot because it is practically impossible it say, okay, people, dont tweet, dont just listen. Just listen to these candidate. Dont start arguing and expressing your own opinion until you heard what these candidates have to stay. Thats practically impossible and undemocratic to do that because we want to encourage debate but how do we get people to focus in and not just be consumed with the sreurbal ticks or some of the things that are distracting sometimes around these the gasping, the sighing, the looking at the watches. We all kind of know what those references are historically and how do we think through what are these candidates actually talking about. Thats at the heart of what the debate ought to be about. How do you take these experiences they have when they come together. Now, our theory of the answer is that there should be a season of conversation. Thats a phrase that our very able executive director janet brown came up with. But these debates are not isolated one time offense. It begins a conversation that ought to continue and ought to inform other aspects of the general Election Campaign as you move through the month of october and into the election period. I think there is something there that we have got to play with, which is its not just about the visuals and that 90 minutes that theyre together on stage, its about what flows out of that and how do we compare the positions and how do we make them more substantive and we have work to do on that. A great example of this is we had no discussion of Global Climate change this in these debates in 2012 and whats the big topic today in the president s address today . Global climate change. How do you get these to get people to think about their choices as a country. Thats t