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Debate Structure: One Key Element To Allowing Us Not The Media Pick Our Candidates

By: wonkish1 (Diary)  |  December 17th, 2010 at 08:33 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

I know many on here probably don’t think this is a big issue. But let me tell you, this does have a huge impact on who is considered top tier candidates and who isn’t. And current debate structure is designed to do two things keep early primary leaders at the top and exclude everybody else, and two give the media immense amount of power in choosing our candidate.

The days of “Give me your 30 second answer to the economy,” and “raise you’re hand if you think global warming is a problem and is man made” have to end now. The other really cool thing is that this is something that could easily be fixed. Presidential candidates care what places like Redstate think of them, and probably as little as 30 headline posts on this issue from Redstate would do a lot to fixing this problem.

Currently, the debate structure is very demeaning to the candidates and us primary voters. First, they announce the candidates like they are getting into a boxing ring. Then they operate on a platform similar to American Idol. Then its a moderator that asks basic questions designed to solicit responses that treat us like idiots. Then they treat the candidates(of which one will likely be the future president of the United States) like children by cutting them off when they are speaking. The list goes on and on.

There is one thing for sure this has to stop if we want have any power over who we choose to be our next president. Currently on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being essentially a collection of 30 second ads on stage and 10 being Lincoln Douglas debates(the most successful debates in American history) we are at like a 1.5. We need to do better than that.

How do we do that? Well just like anything else the answer is found in freedom. Currently, the media exercises to much control over the debate process, and to make this process better we need to be in favor of more freedom for the candidates. Freedom to express their ideas, views, etc. without the heavy hand of media moderators dictating everything during the debates.

Now, I definitely don’t have all of the answers, but for sake of getting the discussion going on the subject here is a list of ideas to change the debate structure.

—-Allow candidates to ask each other questions(I think that is given)
—-Increase the answer time of specific questions
—-Have more focused debates that deal with more specific issues
—-Extend the overall time of Debates
—-Break the candidates into *random* groups and spread a debate over several days
—-Move towards a balance of time structure for keeping track of time instead of the standard “lets cut them off at x” which is kind of degrading to do to a presidential candidate by a media person
—-Allow notes into debates. Instead of having lets memorize 8 statistics that we will use over and over again during the debate, allow them to write down a lot of things so more information is shared
—-Allow the use of props if candidates want to. They may actually end up bringing out some graph or something that convinces a few soft Dems to vote GOP

A couple of these may not be smart to implement, but on the whole we do need to move towards more candidate freedom in debates. So I hope many will post any ideas they have for changing the debate structure.

For all of those that at least want Cain, Pence, and Demint to have a reasonable chance at making their case to the GOP primary voters then a change must occur in regards to debate structure.

The process to fixing it is quite simple really. If a decent amount of stories come out of places like Redstate demand changes to the debate structure then the candidates will see primary voters that want more substance this year and less 30 second talking points. They will pressure the media outlets to make changes and guess what the media organizations will comply. There is no reasonable chance that the media outlets will put up much of a fight when debates do generate quite a lot of ratings.

COMMENTS

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  • wonkish1

    That a more productive debate structure will

    –Not only allow lesser known candidates ample time to make their case to the GOP primary voters
    –Not only give us more power in choosing our candidates
    –But will stem and maybe even reverse the tide in the increasing amount of negative attacks between primary candidates
    –Get us to better know our candidates substantially reducing the chance of a mistake in choice
    –Allow us to get better answers to questions in general that may actually advance the movement itself
    –Make our candidates substantially more prepared for the general election
    –Reduce the power of consultants in presidential campaigns(that is a big one)
    –Allow for the development of better arguments against are leftwing opponents

    These are a lot of very productive results that could have a transformational impact on our election process in ways that benefit us, our party, and our movement.

  • Scope

    You really are not about allowing the lesser known candidates to get into the debate. You apparently have a problem that Ron Paul was not allowed into some debates because he didn’t have the polling support necessary to get into some debates in 2008. Nice try though. How about we have a debate between Ron Paul and Gary Johnson before the debates so they can bring their bonafides to the forefront? I’m not sure that either will not try running on a third party candidacy.

    • wonkish1

      I actually supported the exclusion of Ron Paul from the debates. I find the man crazy. In reference to another post I made elsewhere. I commented that I did think Ron Paul is probably a good person to run the House Federal Reserve Sub Committee. Scope is trying to make turn that statement into a belief that I am a Ron Paul supporter.

      I supported Giuliani in 08. And I was a Forbes supporter in 00, and I’m so far undecided in 2012. And if you look at my name you would likely believe that I associate myself most closely with Paul *Ryan* of all the political figures out there.

      Thanks for the accusation though.

  • http://redmerrimack.blogspot.com/ charliebravoNH

    will be at the Reagan Library this spring. I expect Sarah Palin, if she runs will pull her self out of the debate in protest of NBC and Politico being chosen to moderate. Other Republicans will be pressured to follow Palin;s lead to boycott. Without Sarah and her star power on stage, ratings for NBC will be projected to fall and a business decision will have to be made,

  • Scope

    that the candidates that are serious will start announcing probably in Jan.-March. The first debates are scheduled for spring. There are a few that said they wouldn’t decide until spring such as Daniels for one, and maybe Thune. By then they will have made the same mistake that Fred Thompson did in 08. Granted, Fred waited an exaggerated amount of time to get in, but, he had a groundswell going, and lost probably a good many supporters by waiting as long as he did. He admitted that was a mistake.

    BO actually unofficially started his campaign back when he made his speech to the Democrat Convention in 2006, the year he stole his Senate seat. I’ve read that in 2012 his campaign will raise and spend near to a billion dollars, I’m sure some of that stimulus money is sitting there just waiting. For the Republicans, I’m hoping the Koch brothers are saving their pennies for 2012, our candidate will need all the help they can get. Hillary, I don’t believe wanted to get in as early as she did, but BO forced her hand. The point, the Democrats will be in high gear to set the wheels of corruption in motion right after the new year. Wait, BO never stopped campaigning, that’s why he doesn’t have time to do his job. It ain’t easy golfing for votes these days. One thing he doesn’t have to do though, is fake letting the other guy win. I wonder if John Boehner will let him win out of respect for the office. Any Republican that is a serious candidate must get in, and run for what is now an obligatory two years, just to keep up with the Democrats, if that’s possible.

    Once the field starts growing, someone will begin to stand out, I pray. Whoever it is, short of Mike Gravel switching to the R party, and running, it is my fondest dream that it will be someone acceptable to many, and that the many push him all the way to the finish line with gusto. If we don’t have someone that sets that fire, I really don’t think the debates will accomplish that. We need momentum before the debates to have a very strong finisher, capable of whooping the O’s butt. We can’t wait for the dopes that only start looking at the candidates a week or two before the general elections. I personally think that it all needs to happen, at least to a good degree, before the debates.

    As to asking each other questions, I don’t see how that can happen without an all day debate marathon. We may have two rows of candidates this year, or, we may have to rent the Dallas Cowboys football field to line them up on. I hope not, but it’s possible. I also hope that we have only one or two very strong conservative candidates, so the conservative vote doesn’t get split, or then we will see the reincarnation of John McCain rising right before our eyes. Look at many of the people right here on Redstate all claiming their candidate is the most conservative, or is superior to any others. Imagine that going on with a country full of voters?

    I don’t agree with breaking the candidates into random groups, unless of course you could put one strong candidate in with some very weak candidates in each group. What would that accomplish? I don’t see how having candidates A-E debate on Monday, and candidates E-H debate on Tuesday would help anything. How would you televise each of the groups, have ABC covering Group A, MSNBC covering Group B, and CNN covering Group C? Maybe you need to expand on that idea though.

    Allowing notes into debate- Some may have to bring a pile of notes as high as the Ocare legislation. I think it’s illegal or unethical to write notes on your palm for debates, but, it really is OK for speeches.

    Allow props into debates- You mean like the Perot type, including the pointer? Just don’t bring the high pitched squeaky voice, it hurts my ears. Now we’re seriously talking much much bigger than the Dallas Cowboys football stadium. I guess you could fit a picture of Reagan, with your name under it, onto your personal podium, with the microphone you paid for. Uhhh, I don’t know about the props idea. This is the candidacy for the office of the president, not trying to sell the latest model of the Chevy Volt.

    Sorry for being so silly, I didn’t get much sleep last night. I was worried that Harry would sneak back onto the Senate Floor, in the middle of the night, and pass the Omnibus bill, all by himself.

    Seriously, some of your concerns do have merit. The debate structure does need serious work. I don’t have the answers, unless the Republicans demand that every debate only be recorded by FOX, with only other conservative moderators moderating the debates. No more Gwen Ifil’s for me, no thanks. If we could get a good RNC chair elected in January, maybe they will come with some strong demands that the idiots that have been running the debate show take a hike. Maybe it will take the candidates themselves to refuse to participate in the MSM moderated debates. I bet someone like a Huckabee would show up though. Then the debate winner, plastered all over the news, would be between him and Ron Paul.

  • Locke

    of the candidates with lesser name recognition and exposure, maybe four at a time, the only rules being equal time and no talking over another.

  • wonkish1

    Balance of time rule.

    Each candidate gets alotted a certain amount of time at the beginning. The clock starts when you start speaking and ends when you stop. If you are to stupid and use up all of your time speaking at the beginning then you are stuck just sitting there at the end. They would be sure to not make that mistake though.

  • Locke

    how is the time accounted for? An attack question (“explain why you funnelled campaign funds to your brother-in-law”) can be asked in 5 seconds and may require several minutes for a good answer.

    Friendly questions should be treated differently, but who can decide?

    Maybe it’s just understood that they answer only the questions they want to answer and do so on their own time.

  • wonkish1

    Studied this, have come to the conclusion that once you remove the moderator and they start talking with each other more directly attack questions become a lot less likely. It is believed(and I think they are correct on this) that if someone attempted to get vicious with their opponent that their would be a major backlash against the attacker not the attackee.

    The evidence appears to be backing up this claim.. The closer the 2 political candidates get together the less likely vicious attacks occur with few exceptions. Ads that don’t feature the candidate speaking tend to be the most likely venue of attack. With the candidate speaking to the camera they are a little less vicious. Then strictly controlled debates are even less vicious on stage. Then townhall debates or ones that involve input from the audience are even less vicious.

    And the best example of all was the level of civility that occurred in the Lincoln Douglas debates(which was a level of civility very non typical for back then as well). So to answer your question, as debates trend more towards conversation it will mostly be reasonably friendly questions.

    And in regards to time, I don’t really think that we are talking millisecond accuracy on time here. I think most candidates will be okay with total time being reasonably close(like less than a minute difference between the candidates).

  • wonkish1

    Happens to as evidenced in the Lincoln Douglas debates as well. The parties start getting smarter, too. They start developing better understandings of the issues and they polish their arguments even better.

    You unleash that force into the primaries and I would be hard pressed to find someone that didn’t like the GOP candidates picking up tricks from each other, and getting better on the stump.

  • wonkish1

    Lincoln and Douglas the 2 individuals “party to” the debates.

    Not political parties.