Posted on 10/08/2008 1:07:23 PM PDT by Caleb1411
A presidential debate at its best gives voters a glimpse of a candidate's personality, quick-wittedness, likeability, sense of humor, judgment, basic honesty, knowledge, even character. If the debate is a success, voters get a sense of whether they'd be comfortable with the candidate in the White House for the next four years.
Voters got none of that in last night's so-called town hall debate between John McCain and Barack Obama. What they saw instead were two presidential candidates mostly on autopilot, repeating whole paragraphs from their stump speeches in response to policy questions. Spontaneity was absent. So was lively discussion.
The problem was the questions, chosen from thousands on the Internet and others from the 80 undecided voters assembled in a college arena in Nashville, Tennessee. No doubt there were some questions that would have surprised McCain and Obama or caught them off-guard or forced a moment on candor. But those weren't asked.
The candidates were queried on a narrow range of foreign, economic, health care, and environmental issues--the stuff they talk about every day at rallies and fundraisers. These didn't come close to what voters at a real town hall meeting might have asked. There was no mention of abortion, immigration, moral values, same sex marriage, guns, their role models, their view of the presidency, or their religious faith.
Rather than an unrehearsed town hall meeting, the Commission on Presidential Debates let NBC anchor Tom Brokaw to select the questions. The result was questions that reflected what interests an East Coast newsman. Nothing wrong with that, except this was supposed to be a town hall debate in which the concerns of average folks would be front and center. They weren't.
Not surprisingly, only two new items came up. McCain announced a plan for the federal government to buy mortgages of homeowners about to lose their homes. This would allow the homeowners to keep their houses. Of course, McCain could have announced this anywhere. He didn't need a town hall session to disclose his plan.
Obama's only unexpected statement dealt with spending. He said his administration would, despite its new programs, produce a net spending reduction. This goal was new, or at least sounded new.
It's true that presidential debates usually don't generate campaign breakthroughs--gaffes maybe, but not moments that change the course of a campaign. But with the right questions, they can be a lot more interesting than last night's drowser in Nashville. As imperfect as debates are, they can help voters gain some insight into the candidates.
Oddly enough, it wasn't a journalist who staged the best debate between McCain and Obama. It was an ordained minister, Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in California, the author of best-selling The Purpose-Driven Life. In separate sessions, he asked the same questions, first of McCain, then of Obama.
Their answers gave voters a far better idea of what makes the two candidates tick than all the policy-reality questions asked in the two official presidential debates and one vice presidential debate.
What did Warren ask? Questions like, who is the wisest person you know and do you listen to that person? And what is your greatest moral failure and what is America's.
Here are more Warren questions: What have you changed your mind on? What was your toughest decision? What does your faith and your trust in Jesus Christ mean to you on a daily basis? When does life begin? What's your definition of marriage? Does evil exist? What is worth sacrificing American lives for? How do you define "rich"? What would you do as president for the millions of orphans in the world?
In an hour with each candidate, Warren managed to draw more out of McCain and Obama than either Brokaw did last night or Jim Lehrer did in the first presidential debate. There's a lesson in that that the media professionals would be wise to learn.
‘Not Ready for Prime Time’ ,, format fell flat
calling it a debate much less a townhall is a stretch
My friend, who will remain anonymous, knows Tom Brokaw’s daughter. My friend has spoken with Tom Brokaw about politics, and Tom is (and I quote): “A big f***ing Democrat”.
Case closed for me. My friend lives here in New York City.
So far, Warren has given us the best window into these candidates.
Yeah. Why did Brokejaw get to ask every other question?
There were no winners in that debate, and that includes the amateurish Mr. Brokaw.
But this one was devoid of any passion. It was almost as if they wanted to mock McCain's desire for a Town Hall format, by removing all spontaneity.
Just before the debate, I found myself telling my dad, “They say this is a ‘town hall’ debate, but it’s going to be nothing like that, but completely scripted instead. But we’re always hearing how much McCain likes and is good at ‘town hall’ style debates. So if he doesn’t do all that well tonight for whatever reason, we’re going to hear ‘McCain couldn’t even cut it in a debate setting that’s usually favorable to him.’”
The whole “town hall” descriptor is a farce for these official debates. For the life of me, I can’t understand why McCain hasn’t been playing up how he wanted to have a whole bunch of real, sit-down, one-issue, town hall debates and Obama rejected that idea.
Why do they insist on calling a Q&A session a debate???
East coast liberal newsman.
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