Yes, the debates are important, but the political and economic conditions of the times are probably more important. Some debates have helped decide elections; others have just clarified the electoral winds.  Usually, the challenger has the advantage. He (and perhaps someday she) can go on the offensive. Being on the same stage with the president, who also has to defend his record, results in an automatic elevation of stature -- regardless of who's taller. Overall, an incumbent president has more to lose.  Still, whether a debate alone can win or lose an election is itself open to debate. Every debate produces a gaffe and a few lines for the late-night comedians. Whether that's enough to change the momentum of a campaign isn't so clear.  Most experts agree that the very first televised debate, that between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960, did change the momentum and direction of that election.  Nixon certainly learned his lesson, refusing to debate in 1968 or 1972.  In the second presidential debate of 1976, Max Frankel of The New York Times asked President Gerald Ford about the Soviet influence in Eastern Europe. Ford said, "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration." Astounded, Frankel gave Ford a chance to modify his response, but Ford elaborated, saying, "I don't believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union." Or the Yugoslavians or Romanians, he added -- two countries whose rebellions the Soviet Union had crushed.  That was a jaw-dropper, and Carter said the debates gave him credibility.  But just two years earlier Nixon resigned in disgrace and the country remained torn by the Vietnam legacy. So perhaps Ford's odd declaration only highlighted an inherent political weakness.
It seems everyone -- except perhaps the die-hard NFL fan -- agrees that the most important event scheduled for next week is the first presidential debate. I say "scheduled" because you never know...