• Home
  • Blog
  • Contact
The Screaming Moderate

Debating debates

12/14/2015

0 Comments

 
The cable news networks are cleaning up financially through the Republican presidential debates. The ratings are through the roof which means the networks can charge more for the ads during those debates.

What useful information has come out of those debates to help a voter make a choice on a candidate is another question.

These “debates” usually involve a panel of questioners with the rules typically being something like: Candidates get one minute to answer the question and 30 second to rebut an attack on themselves. After that, it’s a free for all with candidates interrupting each other trying to get their share of air time – between the ads that interrupt the program.

Now the format is aimed at being entertaining, to justify those high ad rates. The networks doesn’t want long, policy-based answers or the debate gets less entertaining for TV (ad rates). Thus, the “winner” typically is the candidate who got him or herself the most face time or had the best one-liner, or who fended off an attack successfully (see Sen. Rubio’s rebuff of Jeb Bush’s attempt two debates ago. That seemed to help establish Rubio as a  "leader" and Bush as "loser" for setting up Rubio).

 I think many of us want information from these debates, information that helps us make a reasoned decision on who we want as our president, not who is the most entertaining or the most prolific at getting his/her face on camera.
Here’s a format I’d suggest:

Limit the debate to five question. Same length of time for the debate -- two hours. That would give each candidate sufficient time to give a real answer. This forces, or tries to force, the candidates to give a substantive answer and forces the panel to work harder on those five questions. Candidates can avoid the question if they choose. But the viewers would see that and avoidance would stand out more clearly when it's just one of five responses they give. If a candidate wants to be seen as avoiding one of five questions, more power to him/her. But the voters would see that too.  Here are my questions:
  1. Please sum up the key points in your economic plan – the spending, the taxes and the cost
  2. Please explain how you would approach the problem of extreme Islamic terrorism in this country and the world.  What would you do to make us feel more secure?
  3. I know politically this is a difficult question to answer because of various considerations but who would be your top three candidates for each of these positions: Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Treasury Secretary and chief of staff?
  4. This campaign has been far different from other campaigns we’ve experienced both in tone and because of the emergence of social media. Some of you have adapted well, some have not. Knowing what you know now, what two things would you do differently if you could start this campaign all over?
  5. What would you do specifically to bridge the wide gap that exists between the two parties that has deadlocked much of the law-making process?
Those would be my top five questions. For one debate. The questions can and should change for each debate. We can argue if they are the right questions. These, though, would allow us to hear answers to how they’d approach the economy (and that can include the income inequality in the country), foreign policy (at least the biggest threat to the West right now), tone and who they might appoint to key jobs, very important especially for the non-political candidates in the mix.  

Some candidates have been quite specific in some proposals, others have not. I also think if they kept the debate to just five questions, they could force the candidates to answer or demonstrate they don’t know the answers and/or what their administrations would look like.

We’ve experienced the bombast. We’ve heard the soundbites. We've read the Tweets.

Now let’s get some information that will tell us what each of these candidates actually would do. And, if they can’t answer, show that, too.

Enough of trying to force candidates to answer questions in one minute or 30 seconds. Let’s give them the time to respond not limited time in which they can avoid.

Bad TV maybe, but good information potentially for those of us who have to make up our minds.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

     
    Follow @bjaycooper

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013

    B. Jay Cooper

    B. Jay is a former deputy White House press secretary to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also headed the communications offices at the Republican National Committee, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Yale University. He is a former reporter and is the retired deputy managing director of APCO Worldwide's Washington, D.C., office.
    He is the father of three daughters and grandfather of five boys and one girl. He lives in Marion, Mass.

powered by bjaycooper.com