Master Debating

The Christian Science Monitor has came out with an article about the CNN debate formats and the imbalance of time offered to the lower tier candidates.

The entire debate format should be challenged. Most of the questions in the debates focused on fluffy issues, like “what does morality mean to you”. This kind of bullshit sound byte styled format only helps one type of organization, the one that makes highlight reels of debates. When everyone’s ability to express their views is limited to a veritable commercial that is the style of candidate that wins the debate. The person that can package themselves the best.

In isolation, being able to sum up platform and policy in a brief concise manner is useful for any person and an ideal trait for a politician. But taken to the excess that it has only undermines true argument and discourse. There are a couple of flaws with the current system that can help to reduce this problem.

1. Get rid of the bottom tier candidates. National debates should concentrate on the candidates that are electable. This should be determined by polls and public opinion, not on fund raising or “expert opinion”. But this would also mean people like Ron Paul, Mike Gravel, Tom Tancredo, and Dennis Kucinich would all be cut from the list. Netnuts, get used to it, the nation doesn’t like your fringe candidates. And more importantly it is not for CNN to provide equal coverage to unequal candidates. These people simply aren’t supported.
2. With the elimination of bottom tier candidates from the major debates, still provide forums and opportunities for their voices. Many national issues come to rise through fringe candidates, and that should not be eliminated. Our airwaves are a national treasure, and all television should shut down during election cycles. However the major candidates still deserve the broadest forum of debates for their views.
3. Less questions, more time to answer. Pretty simple. Move away from talking points, and move more to a structured topic list.
4. Let the Candidates actually argue. This is huge, American politics are diluted and evolving into a reality show where viewers just sit and wait for a verbal fuckup. Lets bring back the standards of highly educated and highly passionate candidates.
5. The moderator shouldn’t be famous, important or consider themselves someone that can limit the conversation. Moderators are only there to keep candidates on topic and prevent petty insults.
6. Let the questions come from the voters. These are our public servants let their desire for office be bent to public will.

This isn’t a fixed list, but it’s where I’d start. Eliminate the crazies, give the debate to the candidates, let the points of conversation come from the public. I’d also advocate for the debates to come from PBS or CSPAN, or force 20 minutes of every commercial hour be devoted to free campaign related air time, where all properly registered candidates get air time (just not all in a debate).

In an election like this where there are so many running for office the effects of giving everybody a speaking chance result in nothing but failure. As seen with the CNN debates there were no hard questions, and there was no room for a candidate to either defend their stance, or be picked apart by another.

Too many cooks in the kitchen.

If people like Rudy Giuliani and Joe Biden had to argue their points out of more than just a paper bag, maybe, just maybe Americans would see them for how inept they really are. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be running for president, or that they shouldn’t be allowed a protected forum to reach the American people. I’m just saying that a debate isn’t it. There’s no challenge, no proving that a candidate is crazy. Everyone is letting this election go by like a popularity contest. It’s in the hands of private organizations that have interests in debates as a commodity, not as a public service. Lets protect our debates, and watch these fuckers actually duke it out like they have a pair.

Not only is it easy for Americans to slide into a passive role in watching politics, but most are unaware of the problem, let alone its causes.

Here’s a hypothetical:

Imagine an industry concentrated on the exploitation and distribution of a valuable natural resource. The resource is in limited supply and the industry functions in a monolithic hegemony splitting the market near equally amongst all competitors. The industry arguably has one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, and has used it’s power to protect market control. The industry has a federal regulation body, but it’s without teeth. The industry has come under investigation for price fixing, monopolistic practices, and overall abuse of the consumer. The industry hides behind claims of “mergers are good for competition” and “the savings will be passed to the bottom rungs”.

This isn’t the oil companies, this is American Media. The fucking monster in the room that has helped to stagnate and rot the most powerful medium for American communication. But unlike with oil companies where profit and production are firmly within the private sector, the airwaves that media uses and controls are firmly and without debate a natural and public resource. It is something that we have total control over.

The debate format must change, it’s a pressure point in the political system where enlightened exchange has been cut off in favor of fast and flashy sound quips. If we continue down the road of structuring our debates to let the best “talking head” win, then that’s the type of president that we will elect.

And if that happens my fellow Americans?

The terrorists have won.

(x posted)

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