Video: '1988 Presidential Candidates Debate 1 - September 25, 1988'

(Sunday, September 25, 1988, 8:00-9:30 p.m. EDT; during the United States presidential election, 1988 campaign) — U.S. Vice President and Republican presidential nominee George H.W. Bush and Massachusetts Governor and Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis clashed over deficits, drugs and the Pledge of Allegiance in their first of two debates tonight at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Bush sought repeatedly in the 90-minute debate to depict Dukakis as a liberal Democrat who is “out there out of the mainstream.” Dukakis challenged the Vice President’s judgment and ticked off a string of what he called Reagan administration failures, with emphasis on the Iran-Contra affair.