He had won us over without persuading us with his arguments. After an hour I realised I had not prevailed in this debate, I had lost. He responded genially, amiably and respectfully. I thought I would make short work of him in front of that audience. “On Vietnam, on the right of 18-year-olds to vote – which Reagan opposed – on the United Nations, on social security. “I had prepared a long list of what I thought were very tough questions,” recalls Sandel, now 67, via video-link from his study in Boston. The subsequent encounter confounded the expectations of his youthful interlocutor. Somewhat to Sandel’s surprise, Reagan took up the gauntlet that had been thrown down, arriving at the school in style in a black limousine. It was the height of the Vietnam war, which had radicalised a generation, and student campuses of any description were hostile territory for a conservative. Never short of confidence, in 1971 Sandel challenged him to a debate in front of 2,400 left-leaning teenagers. The future philosopher was president of the student body at Palisades high school, California, at a time when Ronald Reagan, then governor of the state, lived in the same town. M ichael Sandel was 18 years old when he received his first significant lesson in the art of politics.
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