The overlap between the Olympic Games in Sydney and the presidential debate season now getting under way is coincidental, but instructive. We've watched the athletes go head-to-head in high-stakes competition, and now we're settling down to watch the candidates do the same. There's a sneaking feeling that a panel of judges, holding up scores, would not be out of place on the debate stage.

And amid complaints that the Olympics are too packaged, come suspicions that the same is true of the debates. But just as Australian runner Cathy Freeman can break through that perception, presidential candidates can do the same.

Debate-watchers love to look back in time and find "the moment" that defined the long-term winner or loser of a particular encounter. There's a fairly well-established roster of such moments.

Some are the equivalent of a perfect 10—think of Ronald Reagan's effectively killing the age issue with an avuncular, "I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience." Others are akin to the moment a high-flying gymnast crashes unexpectedly to earth—as in the second Ford-Carter debate of 1976, when Ford made the astonishing comment that "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe," at a moment when there were between 10 and 15 Soviet divisions in Poland. From the Mouths of Babes
Only one of them features a child, and it was not a winner: when President Jimmy Carter, debating Ronald Reagan in 1980, spoke about what was the most critical issue facing the country. Carter's comment: "I had a discussion with my daughter, Amy, the other day, before I came here, to ask her what the most important issue was. She said she thought nuclear weaponry—and the control of nuclear arms."

The conventional wisdom is that Carter's admission that he took seriously what his young daughter had to say about the issues of the day was one of the nails in his political coffin. Did we really want a man who listened to children in charge of our nuclear arsenal?

So we may not hear too much that's really for, about, or important to children in the debates. Education, access to health insurance, juvenile justice, foster care: these are issues that might come up. But debates tend to focus on issues that are considered more presidential: the economy, foreign policy, the military, with a nod towards whatever hot-button social issues are most prominent at the moment, such as abortion or the death penalty. Become Debate-Literate
But for every voter, whatever his or her concerns, the debates are a wonderful window on certain aspects of the candidates. Are they graceful under pressure? Quick-witted? Mean-spirited or generous? Right or wrong, viewers draw conclusions about whether a candidate is trustworthy, likeable, or intelligent.

Just as the candidates are extensively briefed and rehearsed before each debate, as voters we can sit down in front of the television prepared. A video for schools prepared by The Commission on Presidential Debates, "Techniques of Persuasion," gives vivid examples of common debate tactics—appeals to emotion, the use of generalities and oversimplification, avoidance (defined by host Hal Bruno as "the art of not answering tough questions"), misrepresentation of an opponent's position and personal attacks. On-line, you can find transcripts of past debates, quizzes, full-fledged curricula for students of different ages, and other information to help get you thinking about the strategies debaters use to make the moment serve their goals. Let the debates begin.