If there had been Televised Presidential Debates in '68...

The reason it didn't happen was that it didn't need to happen. Nixon is an awkward figure, and I think all parties involved much preferred to fight without having to look one another in the eye, except perhaps Humphrey. Can you imagine Nixon, Humphrey and George Wallace on one stage?
 
Oops. I assume that they always had the debates since 1960, looked it up. My mistake

1960 was treated for many, many years as a unique one off like an Elvis satellite special. There was not a televised debate again until 1976, and then it became something that we have as a tradition. Television is great for transparency, but a lot of politicians did not like cameras in their business, and it may been a matter of television making politics less sacred. There's only two presidential candidates that matter most years, and it only happens every four years, so it was not difficult to avoid.
 
Nixon was far ahead in the polls and had no incentive to allow a debate. (To relax the "equal time" rule then in effect--which made televised debates virtually impossible, since even the most minor candidates would have to be debated, Congress would have to act to suspend the rule. The GOP could easily filibuster any attempt to do so.)
 
The equal time rules meant Wallace would have to be allowed in the debate if he wanted to be. In 1960 an independent canfidate in Illinois was allowed onto talk shows that Nixon and Kennedy appeared on by invoking the fairness doctrine.
 
But if Wallace and Humphrey debate by themselves, and at the start of each debate the moderator has to explain Nixon didn't want to show up, wouldn't that look bad on Tricky Dick, meaning he may want to avoid that by giving in and actually debating in the first place?
 
But if Wallace and Humphrey debate by themselves, and at the start of each debate the moderator has to explain Nixon didn't want to show up, wouldn't that look bad on Tricky Dick, meaning he may want to avoid that by giving in and actually debating in the first place?

Under the equal time rule, *every* candidate would have to be invited--not just Humphrey, Nixon, and Wallace but the candidates of the Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Labor Party, Prohibition Party, etc. This would make a debate utterly impractical.
 
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