a close race. He won by 9 points.

Not sure why carter agreed to that. It was the only debate and that dumb line there he goes again is played all the time. Carter was winning until around 3 days and still thought he'd win. Not sure how Reagan ended up winning.

You're thinking of Mondale.

Both that election Bush-Dukakis were foregone conclusions weeks before election day. We didn't have the same pundit culture at the time, so there wasn't this rabid, endless reading of silly polls all day and every day. Now, we have hundreds of pundits, all of whom have to say something to keep the "content" going and going and going, so comparing 1984 and 1988 to 2016 is really pointless.

'It was held on Tuesday, November 4, 1980. The contest was between incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter and his Republican opponent, former California Governor Ronald Reagan, as well as Republican Congressman John B. Anderson, who ran as an independent.

The contest was between incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter and his Republican opponent, former California Governor Ronald Reagan, as well as Republican Congressman John B. Anderson, who ran as an independent. Reagan, aided by the Iran hostage crisis and a worsening economy at home marked by high unemployment and inflation, won the election by a landslide, receiving the highest number of electoral votes ever won by a non-incumbent presidential candidate.

Carter, after defeating Edward M. Kennedy for the Democratic nomination, attacked Reagan as a dangerous right-wing radical. For his part, Reagan pledged to uplift the pessimistic mood of the nation, and won a decisive victory; in the simultaneous Congressional elections, Republicans won control of the United States Senate for the first time since 1955. This election marked the beginning of what is called the "Reagan Revolution" or Reagan Era, and signified a conservative realignment in national politics.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1980

Ted Kennedy challenging Carter didn't help either.

I was on an Air Force plane going home for a visit. We got the news that the hostages were released. How's that for coincidence. Later came Iran-Contra hearings. It was a huge crime.

After the 1996 election was called, ABC ran a special with Peter Jennings which started with him saying, "For the last 3 days, we in the press knew who was going to win this election; we have not reported on that knowledge, because we didn't want to influence your vote." How times have changed.

(The special, by the way, had him following Clinton around for the last 3 days of the campaign; it was pretty well done, but I've never seen it since.)

Knew Clinton was going to win. He was clearly leading Dole in the polls.

in which Reagan did well on style and Carter on substance--style won. Then the last weekend there was another story that the hostages were going to be released and weren't--and Carter's numbers dropped.

...the 1980 election.

Not just the debate. The end of October. Therefore...

No October Surprise. No last-minute deal to end the Iran Hostage Crisis.

The Desert One rescue mission had been a humiliating fiasco, he couldn't negotiate an end, it was just going to drag on and on and on and on... . It was the sort of thing that got people thinking maybe someone different would do better.*

No analog today that doesn't require a gargantuan shoehorn.

*Before anyone mentions Reagan's dealing with the Iranians, remember we're talking about the election itself. The dealings would have needed to be clearly exposed before the election to have an impact on the outcome, and the intelligence community tended to have an active dislike for the Carter administration for firing a few hundred people at the CIA.