The only time a third party candidate was involved in a presidential debate was in 1992, said Alan Schroeder, a professor emeritus of journalism and presidential elections expert at Northeastern University. 

Kim Lewis, a biology professor at Northeastern University who researches Lyme disease, thinks that’s because the medical system isn’t comfortable with uncertainty.

“The campaigns have always wanted to take the debates back for themselves,” said Alan Schroeder, a professor emeritus at the Northeastern University School of Journalism in Boston, who has written several books about presidential debates. 

“He’s the one that actually challenged Jimmy Carter to debates, and that set in place this tradition that has existed ever since then of presidential debates,” Alan Schroeder, professor emeritus of journalism at Northeastern University, previously told CNN’s Zachary B. Wolf.

“Both candidates will be under greater scrutiny than they have ever been due to their age,” Alan Schroeder, a professor emeritus at Northeastern University who wrote the book “Presidential Debates: Risky Business on the Campaign Trial.” He called the debate “one of the only moments in which the candidates don’t have complete control.”

Joan Fitzgerald, a professor of public policy and urban affairs at Northeastern University: “The impact of climate change on coastal cities is happening now. About 40% of the nation’s population lives in coastal areas. Sea-level rise is increasing water levels on the Eastern coast sooner than expected and in many cases, land is subsiding.”

Nikos Passas, a criminology professor at Northeastern University, employs a catchy phrase to describe corporate practices that are within the letter of the law yet have adverse social consequences: “lawful but awful.”

“Any one of those things would get attention, but when you add them all up, there is a fascination,” said Daniel Medwed, a professor of law and criminal justice at Northeastern University. “We’re all like rubberneckers, watching for the next bombshell.”