Thoughts on Tonight’s Debate

race42012.com ^

[tsowellfan]

I have several things running through my head at the moment. Let’s discuss them one at a time.

The format: I dislike “Townhall” debates. For one thing, discussions tend to be very shallow — even more shallow than usual. Getting beyond canned talking points from the candidates will take a minor miracle. For another, what serious questions can you expect from someone who is “undecided” at this point? As I stated in a previous post:

Undecided Citizens!!! Just what sort of deep, piercing hot-button question could you honestly expect from someone who has paid so little attention to the race so far as to remain “undecided” at this stage of the game? I want to see hard questions asked of the candidates that make them sweat. …The chances of that happening with true “undecided” voters has to be … slim to none.

Another problem with the format is...

[RedStateRocker]

I don’t think it fair or wise to pick on undecideds.

I know several people who are of the opinion that BOTH candidates are completely dishonest liars, beholden to special interests, who believe nothing and are only concerned about getting elected. Kind of like being undecided between getting poked in the eyes or kicked in the gonads.

[struggle]

I hoping we get a conservative plant in there that is willing to ask off-script questions.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Wonder whatever happened to the pony tail guy from the ‘92 town hall debate, the one who said “we are your children, take care of us” or words to that effect.

If they pack the crowd with liberal types such as that dude, it will definitely affect the questions and the tone of the debate. And the media will spin it as Obama’s big comeback. Obama will be the “winner” of the debate, per the MSM. The hand picked audience will be useful idiots in that effort.

[Baynative]

A good leader is the last to take credit and the first to take blame. Barack Obama is the opposite.

[bgill]

Undecided, hahahahahahaha! There has never been, nor will there ever be an undecided voter at any of these meetings. Townhall meetings of this sort are nothing but stacked audiences who’s sole purpose of being there is to set up the opponent.

[Friendofgeorge]

JUST IN.....

The US debate commission has just announced the moderators for the 2016 debates and the venues

Rush Limbaugh will moderate the first debate,will be a town hall,the audience and questions will be selected by Rush listeners,with Rush making the final calls

Shaun Hannitty, Mark Levin and Gov Sarah Palin will be the others. Gov Palin may not be available...developing

So far Democrats are fine with this

[longtermmemmory]

candy crowly was on NPR this am:

she is diverse because her family were hunters so she has cred on the second amendment (really?)

she has leftist cred because she is ...wait for it....A VEGITARIAN!!! (must be some new form of vegitarian)

She was so full of herself that her journalism/college should demand their deploma back.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

Obama won the debate—the MSM have already written the story of the comeback kid! Mitt was too mechanical, no passion, hates poor people—cold hearted and a tool of the Rich. Obama had all the passion and compassion! The One is back! He deserves four more years to finish fixing what evil George Bush did to the Nation. Mitt “The Mormon” Romney is Bushes 3rd Term. Nay—we need to change the rules so Obama can do four terms like FDR. Or maybe Michelle can run in 2016 to finish the work of Obama! Happy days of free health care are hear again! That’s what is set to happen—and the moderator will make sure it does!

[CrazyIvan]

“she is diverse because her family were hunters so she has cred on the second amendment (really?)

she has leftist cred because she is ...wait for it....A VEGITARIAN!!! (must be some new form of vegitarian)”

Don’t laugh if you’ve never been charged by a wounded carrot.

[BenLurkin]

The 'Rats will pull out all the stops.

Romney better understand that everyone will be working against him. This includes the lighting guy, the make-up girl, the sound guy, the moderator, etc etc etc

[mrsmith]

This guy is extremely uninformed.
CANDY CRAWLEY PICKS THE QUESTIONS.

5 or 10 questioners will be picked by Crawley after she interviews all the questioners befor the debate.

These will be HER QUESTIONS asked.
She also gets to briefly ‘redirect’ the question to the candidates.

Video of the 2008 town hall debate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkBqLBsu-o4
This will be the exact same format.

[jakerobins]

Do you think they will fly in the Obama-phone lady?? Or just find any old Democrat to ask Romney why he want’s to kill their Grandmother?

[Dilbert San Diego]

I agree. The propaganda arm of the campaign (the MSM) have already decided that this is Obama’s “comeback kid” moment. It doesn’t matter what happens tonight. They will spin it as Obama’s shining moment, that he fought back, that he took center stage, that he is passionately fighting for liberalism, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Chris Mathews will be a happy man tonight.

[bmwcyle]

Did she eat the rain forest?

[asinclair]

I'm someone who has "moderated" town hall debates, at the local level. Specifically, I and newspeople in our town ran what was called "Candidates' Nights" where the people of the community were invited to submit questions to be presented to the candidates. The format the newspeople who worked the forum decided on was a little different: instead of taking individual questions, we sorted the questions and combined them so to eliminate duplication, and to expand the questions broadly enough to include all facets of the issues the questions brought up.

Unlike some forum organizers, we had representatives from just about every part of the political spectrum working together. The question prep was multi-partisan, if I may say so myself. Some details:

• The candidates were not given the questions in advance.
• Each candidate was given three minutes to answer, plus one minute for rebuttal.
• The time was kept by a computer with screens visible to both candidates and audience, to keep "time cheating" (and more importantly, the appearance of cheating) to an absolute minimum.
• The order of answering was by chance, literally the throw of a die at the time the question was asked.

My role was to read the questions, and control the microphones. I did not ask follow-up questions, I did not "steer" the debate using anything other than the composite questions.

Each slate of candidates was given a starting time, and we kept to those starting times, so that people could decide whether to make an afternoon/evening of it, or cherry-pick on specific races.

The response by the townspeople was positive, amazingly so. They liked the format.

[tsowellfan]

RE: This guy is extremely uninformed.
CANDY CRAWLEY PICKS THE QUESTIONS.

---

(”this guy”) “Second the questions were pre-submitted and selected by the moderator — a known liberal. Third, the follow-up discussion is “facilitated” by said liberal. What are the chances of that process being “fair”?”

(Me) Am I missing something in the article?

[tsowellfan]

Yup, they are “moderates” who have not yet made up their minds. Pretty scary.

[dforest]

I think most people already have decided. This debate won’t change many minds because the Obama up there will be the same Obama acting somewhat different than the last debate.

Obama stands to gain only in that a better performance will pump up his base, but his ideology and what he has to say will be the same old crap.

For this to hurt Romney is a bad way, he would have to gaffe bigtime or act like Joe Biden, As long as he keeps it cool like the last time and gets his barbs in, he will be fine.

[CincyRichieRich]

Per usual, Rush will surprise us and swim upstream as he opens today. Conventional wisdom has it he’ll start with debate talk, or Hillary...nope, something else. I have no idea.

It will be more curious to see what he thinks Hillary got in return...and, he’ll note as usual that the 0bummer and Hitlery have neither taken responsibility.