Civil War Era Studies Prof. Allen Guelzo's op-ed appears in 'Washington Post' on Feb. 3

Posted: Sun, 3 Feb 2008

Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era Studies Allen Guelzo has had much media success with the release of his latest book, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates That Defined America. He has been mentioned in Time, The Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal.

His opinion piece, "Lincoln-Douglas: The Real Thing," appeared Feb. 3 in the Washington Post and in several others. "What set the Lincoln-Douglas meetings apart from modern political debates," Guelzo wrote, "was the seriousness with which the participants went at their task and the extent to which their audiences paid attention." Guelzo explained that the three-hour long debates featured one topic and crowds of 15,000 to 20,000 would turn out, "listening with an intensity that would rival that of an American Idol audience." He concluded, "debates of the 2008 campaign have more in common with a game show, emceed by grimacing journalists playing ‘Wheel of Gotcha.' Nor is it likely that a candidate like Abraham Lincoln would survive the first click of the remote."

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