1. The first televised presidential debate was a turning point in the tight battle between John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960 – but not because of what either candidate said. [Democrat Senator Kennedy was challenging incumbent Republican President Dwight Eisenhower’s Vice President, Richard Nixon.] Kennedy oozed charm and confidence. Nixon, who was just out of hospital, applied chemist store make-up to his five o-clock shadow, looked pale and shifty and perspired heavily. Presidential candidates opted not to appear in televised debates for the next 16 years.

2. In 1976, President Gerald Ford bewilderingly insisted: “”There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.” He lost shortly afterwards to Jimmy Carter.

3. Ronald Reagan, the former Hollywood star, was not surprisingly a natural in front of the cameras. In 1980, he fatally wounded Carter with his delivery of the simplest question to viewers. “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” The Romney ticket is asking the same question this year.

4. In 1984, Democrats tried to make Reagan’s age an election issue – at 73, he was America’s oldest president and had performed shakily in his first debate with Walter Mondale. But when asked about his age in the final debate, he replied: “I want you to know also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Even his rival laughed and shortly afterwards Reagan swept the country.

5. Running for Republican vice-president in 1988, the youthful Dan Quayle had a tendency to compare his experience to that of John F. Kennedy. When Quayle did so in a debate, his Democrat rival Lloyd Bentsen shot back: “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.” It was perhaps the greatest put-down in debate history, but Quayle was still elected as running-mate of the first George Bush.

6. Four years later, President Bush learned the cost of “gesture politics”. He was criticised for making a prominent show of looking at his watch while his young challenger Bill Clinton answered a question.

7. In 2000, Al Gore sighed relentlessly while the younger George Bush spoke. It conveyed an air of elitist condescension and may have cost Gore enough votes to lose him the bitterly-contested election.

8. Barack Obama is not always good with words. In New Hampshire in 2008, Hillary Clinton was asked if Obama was more personable than her. She responded with a joke and a smile, but a stern Obama, looking down at his notes, said coldly: “You’re likable enough.” The dismissive comment was criticised as condescending and arrogant and two days later he lost that primary as female voters backed Clinton in larger numbers than expected.

9. John McCain, the Arizona senator who spent the late 1960s as a POW in Vietnam, has a reputation for his one-liners. He delivered one of his best during the Republican primary campaign four years ago. “In case you missed it, a few days ago Senator Clinton tried to spend $1 million on the Woodstock Concert Museum. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I wasn’t there. I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. I was tied up at the time.”

10. And Rick Perry, the Texas governor, had the most embarrassing brain-freeze in debate history in the Republican primaries earlier this year. Saying that as president, he would abolish three federal agencies, he then named commerce and education – but could not recall the third, even as his embarrassed rivals offered suggestions. “Oops,” he said after a few agonising seconds. (It was energy, for the record).

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