Digital Project Proposal

Political junkie that I am, I have long been fascinated by the quadrennial presidential debates. The power of the debates is evidenced currently by the fact that most commentators seem to believe that Kerry's performance in the first of the 2004 debates restored his credibility as a viable candidate. I am old enough to remember the so-called "Great Debates" between Kennedy and Nixon which I believe was a watershed event in political history because for the first time television seems to have had an impact on the outcome of a presidential election. For my digitial project, I would like to do a combination teaching resource-archive on these first debates. There's a lot of material available on the web including video, audio, and transcripts as well as a wealth of contemporary primary materials, such as newspaper and magazine accounts, political cartoons, etc. These materials on a single website would be useful to political historians, teachers at all levels, and people like me who simply are interested in the topic.