1988 First Presidential Debate

A filmmaker is granted unprecedented access to a political candidate and his family as he runs for President.

A retrospective on the great election battles of the past in the United States: the Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960, the first ever to be televised; the Republican campaign of 1972, which proved to be the starting point for the Watergate scandal; and the electoral strategy of Barack Obama in 2008, the first election to fully exploit the potential of the Internet.

The inauguration of George H. W. Bush as the 41st president of the United States was held on Friday, January 20, 1989, at the West Front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 51st inauguration and marked the commencement of the only term of both George H. W. Bush as president and Dan Quayle as vice president.

Pirated satellite feeds revealing U.S. media personalities’ contempt for their viewers come full circle in Spin. TV out-takes appropriated from network satellite feeds unravel the tightly-spun fabric of television—a system that silences public debate and enforces the exclusion of anyone outside the pack of journalists, politicians, spin doctors, and televangelists who manufacture the news. Spin moves through the L.A. riots and the floating TV talk-show called the 1992 U.S. presidential election.

The third and final presidential debate between Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama took place on Wednesday, October 15, 2008, in the David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex on the campus of Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. The debate was moderated by Bob Schieffer of CBS. The focus was on domestic policy and the economy.

The fourth and final presidential debate between Vice President Richard Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy took place on Friday, October 21, 1960, at the ABC studios in New York City, New York. The debate was moderated by Quincy Howe of ABC with Frank Singiser, John Edwards, Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor as panelists. Questions were related to Foreign affairs.

The first presidential debate between Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush took place on Tuesday, October 3, 2000, in the Clark Athletic Center on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Boston in Boston, Massachusetts. The debate was moderated by Jim Lehrer of PBS' The NewsHour, who posed the questions for each candidate.

The first presidential debate between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Businessman Donald Trump, took place on Monday, September 26, 2016, at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. The debate was moderated by Lester Holt of NBC. It was originally scheduled to take place at Wright State University, but the venue was changed due to security and financial concerns.

The second presidential debate between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Businessman Donald Trump took place on Sunday, October 9, 2016, at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. The town hall style debate was moderated by Martha Raddatz of ABC and Anderson Cooper of CNN.

The third and final presidential debate between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Businessman Donald Trump took place on Wednesday, October 19, 2016, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in Paradise, Nevada.

The first presidential debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden took place on Tuesday, September 29, 2020, at the Samson Pavilion of the Health Education Campus (HEC), which is shared by Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. The debate was moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox.