Debates- Historical Context

In history, there have been many debates; they range from friendly debates in the playground over silly things like who has the biggest father or in high school classes over the rights of the people and even in important things like presidential debates where they have to sway a whole country to elect them.
In class we have been analyzing the Lincoln-Douglas debates we have also been analyzing the more recent debates: Obama v. McCain. One thing that I have noticed is that the methods of debates, no matter what format they are. One of the methods I found that was repeated was how they attach, they bring up a fact that the other person misstated, or just messed up and then they exaggerate it in such a way that they make other people only see the negative aspect of the opponent.
Something I also noticed is that the presidential candidates many times, when asked a question, don’t answer it. They just start talking on whatever they want to talk about, or they just keep expanding on what they were talking about before the question was asked.