From Richard Nixon’s 5 o’clock shadow to George H.W. Bush’s glance at his watch, lasting images inevitably emerge from presidential and vice presidential debates. And lines from historic contests can have far more longevity than the speakers’ political careers: Lloyd Bentsen’s “You’re no Jack Kennedy.” Ronald Reagan’s “There you go again!”

In its presidential oral-history archives, the University of Virginia’s Miller Center has discovered timeless debate lessons learned by candidates and their advisers.

Show emotion

When Bernie Shaw asked that opening question (about the hypothetical rape and murder of Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis’ wife) . . . all of us went: “Huuuh. Oh, my God, what an opener.”

Then, when Dukakis gave the answer, which was dreadful, like a robot, unfeeling, no emotions, cerebral, it fit the entire narrative that we were trying to portray him in.

Several of us said: “We just won. Not just the debate. This is over.”

— David Demarest, campaign communications director for George H.W. Bush, on the 1988 debates

Deflect zingers

The debate coverage focused on (Lloyd Bentsen’s) Kennedy line. People came up afterwards and said, “You should have had a lot of comebacks on that.” I said: “OK, fine, you tell me what. The most interesting comeback would have been, ‘Now wait a second, if my memory is correct, you voted for Sen. (Lyndon) Johnson in those days. You weren’t even for Sen. Kennedy when he was running for president, so what’s this buddy-buddy business?’ That was the best one.”

— Vice President Dan Quayle, on his 1988 debate with Lloyd Bentsen

Don’t look at your watch — ever

At the very beginning of the debate, Carole (Simpson) . . . had said to President Bush, Bill Clinton and to Ross Perot, “Now, there won’t be any filibustering here.” And she said, “That means you, too, Mr. Perot,” because Ross Perot had been cited in the press many times for his tendency to go on and on; that had happened in previous debates.

So President Bush, at one point during the debate when Ross Perot was going on at great, great length, looked at Carole — and if you watch the tape, you’ll see he looked at her, then his watch, suggesting clearly, “Hey, Perot’s time is up” — meaning he’s filibustering. The media picked it up and wrote the story as another example that he didn’t get it.

— Phillip D. Brady, staff secretary to George H.W. Bush, on the 1992 debates

Feel their pain

We talked about when (Democratic nominee Bill) Clinton was asked about the national debt by an African-American woman (in the town hall debate). She said, “How has the national debt affected you personally?” What she meant to say was, “How bad is the economy?”

Bush struggled with trying to figure out — and he was so much of a literalist, he kept trying to figure out what it was she was getting at, and then he didn’t give a very good answer. Then Clinton walks right up to her, and he talks about all the people that he knows personally in Arkansas who lost their jobs and their factories, and he’s talking to her like she’s the only person in the universe. It was just such a contrast. It was great. He was incredibly compelling.

Clinton also had gone to that site before, and he had talked to his media people. He knew where the camera shoots were, and he knew when they’d be doing an over-the-shoulder cut. He was into that sort of stuff. Bush hated that. He no more would have done that than fly to the moon.

— David Demarest, White House communications director for George H.W. Bush, on the 1992 debates