Lessons from the debates of the past

EXPLAINING Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory over Jimmy Carter, The Economist’s issue dated November 8th 1980 singled out a few big factors. These included a mood of economic “misery”, public angst about American hostages held in Iran and the splintering of the Democratic voting coalition between white southerners and northern workers underway since the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the riot-torn, race-haunted election of 1968. “This was the election that Watergate postponed”, was the pithy verdict of this newspaper’s Washington bureau, contemplating Mr Carter’s drubbing in 44 states.