Sunday night’s crowd-free Biden-Sanders showdown was the most serious and substantive yet.

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Presidential debates, much less their precise format, are far from enshrined in the American political tradition. There were no such debates until the 1960 bout between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon (though the Republicans held a debate between their primary opponents in 1948, and the Democrats followed course in 1956). Then, after the 1960 duel, whose telecast might have won the election for the dashing JFK, no debates took place for the next 16 years.

The custom was revived with the contest between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford in 1976. The event was sponsored by the League of Women Voters, a truly nonpartisan organization, which set the rules, selected the moderators, vetted the studio audiences, and instructed them to be quiet. The League sponsored the next two debates as well (Carter vs. Ronald Reagan in 1980, Reagan vs. Walter Mondale in ’84), but then pulled out before the 1988 contest, complaining that the campaigns were demanding too large a say in setting the rules and packing the hall. The group’s trustees released a statement:

The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship of the presidential debates … because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates’ organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity, and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.

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But Sunday night’s contest showed that, in the absence of a crowd cheering on the combatants’ more pandering tendencies, a debate can be a useful exercise after all—a way to gauge the candidates’ views and character.

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https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/debate-audience-coronavirus-biden-sanders.html