The Second College Edition of The American Heritage Dictionary defines debate as; To engage in argument by discussing opposing points (American Heritage,369). Another definition is as follows; a formal contest ofargumentation in which two opposing teams defend and attack a given proposition (American Heritage,369). TheRandom House College Dictionary offers this definition; To engage in formal argumentation or disputation with(another person, group, etc.) (Random House,342). So which definition is correct? We know a debate is a discussion or an argument. What has to be decided iswhether or not it is between two groups or several groups. That same question has arisen in the Presidentialdebates of the 1996 presidential election campaigns. That question being whether or not Ross Perot and hisrunning mate should have been included in the debates with President Clinton, Bob Dole and their running mates. In order to answer this question we have to know more about the debates history. The presidential debates arein place for the public to see and hear what the candidates have to say about issues facing the nation. Whiledebating between presidential candidates has been occurring throughout America’s history they were limited to asmall audience (Leone,_). However with the 1960 debates between Kennedy and Nixon a whole new world wasopened as millions of viewers watched the debates on television (Leone,_). Those first televised debates aregenerally credited with giving John F. Kennedy the winning margin in a very close presidential race (Leone,_). Following the 1960 election there were no publicly televised debates until 1976, and since then the debateshave become an expected and important feature of presidential campaigns (Leone,_). The confidence of the debateswith widespread views of general lack of government legitimacy prompted the formation of the PresidentialDebate Commission before the 1988 election thus replac...
