Problems with the Presidential Debate Format?
Are Americans less and less informed as a result of the media and Presidential debate formats? What exactly did we learn from the most recent Democratic and Republican debates?
Well I watched the Democratic presidential debate on Monday and the republican debate last week. After watching these debates, I am concerned about the primary process and what our technologies have turned it into. I know this is something that has been lamented over by countless Americans but I seriously think we need to decide what about it we don’t like and need to have a movement to attempt to fix it.
We are currently facing a high possibility of nuclear attack, which could very likely mean the end of life. We are in the middle of foreign and domestic crisis and because of our communication technologies all of the worlds problems have become lumped together and interconnected.
When Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglass were running against each other for president in 1860 the debate format was quite different. The debates often went on for over seven hours and the candidates each were allotted upwards of an hour to explain all of their policies etc. and than the other candidate was allowed to respond. They wrote detailed speeches in articulated English that was very specific which allowed for a very healthy discourse.
In today’s debates, policy is not even discussed. In the recent democratic debate the first half hour of the debate was spent resolving a dispute between Hillary and Barrack that was closer to high school drama than a serious political discussion.
In the republican debate John McCain told us that he would “follow Bin Laden to the gates of hell”, and Thompson spent his time bickering at Huckabee about how he has “liberal policies”.
You see that is the thing; I think the media needs to force these candidates to talk specifics about their policies. Mainstream media tells the public very little if any specifics of the candidate’s policies. They don’t ask and force the candidates to say specifically why they support their policies if they are even able to get a 40 second summation of the policy. What I fear is that these summations may actually be all of the policy. Oh dear.
The debate format is an even bigger joke. Ok you have 30 seconds, how are you going to solve the energy crisis? Go!……..5 seconds, ok Hillary you now go!
The Middle East, the economy, national security, energy crisis, nuclear proliferation, these are all subjects whose solutions require serious thought and discourse. How can we know anything about our candidates when our debates are in the format of a game show?
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