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| Barack Obama and Mitt Romney will intensify their election campaign with their first TV debate on Wednesday |
Washington: Tens of millions of Americans will tune in
Wednesday night to watch the much hyped first television debate of the session
when Democrat candidate Barack Obama will challenge his Republican rival Mitt Romney in Denver,
Colorado.
The debate of is the country’s most
anticipated and arguable political event so far this year.
The first political debates in the U.S.
history took place in Illinois, in 1858. Senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln
and Stephen Douglas stood on this rock and argued over slavery. Lincoln lost
the race but went on to win the presidency two years later. Ten thousand people
watched the debate in this park.
Fast forward 100 years and many more would
watch a presidential debate on a fairly young technology called television.
A tanned Senator John F. Kennedy visually overpowered an uncomfortable and
sweaty Vice President Richard Nixon. Journalist Howard K. Smith moderated the
debate.
US presidential debates over the decades have produced a series of memorable
gaffes, flubs, and zingers.
At the height of the Cold War, for example, President Gerald Ford said in a
1976 debate with challenger Jimmy Carter that “there is no Soviet domination of
Eastern Europe,” prompting much subsequent cackling from the chattering
classes.
Obama enters Wednesday’s debate in Denver, Colorado, leading Romney by more
than 3 percent, according to RealClearPolitics, which averages national polls.
The debate, for which both candidates have been engaged in intense
preparations, will focus on domestic policy. They are set to spar over foreign
policy in subsequent debates on October 16 and 22.