Challenge: No standardized presidential debates

Today we take televised presidential debates pretty much for granted. We hear about 1960, 1980, 1992, etc. and assume that debates were the exception and not the rule.

However, after 1960 most presidential nominees were reluctant to go on television and debate their opponent. Johnson had no reason to in 1964, neither Nixon nor Humphrey wanted to give Wallace a stage in 1968, and Nixon had no reason to in 1972. It wasn't until 1976 (yep, 16 years) that we saw another debate between major political candidates when both men thought they had something to gain from the exposure. In 1980 and 1984 Reagan continued the trend of debating his opponent. In 1988 the Commission on Presidential Debates took over the operation of the debates from the League of Women Voters, and the format and rules for inclusion, etc. were standardized.

Your challenge, then, is to find a way that standardized debates are not the norm in America in 2012.
 
Debates would be standardized in some form, there is no way around it. If the two men are going to debate each other within one hour, for example, a format would have to be agreed upon. The general format may change over the course of a campaign, each debate being slightly different than the other, but some structure would be present.
 
Fair enough, let me clarify.

Challenge: No Commission on Presidential Debates, no expectation of televised presidential debates, no standard for inclusion in the debates should they take place.
 
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