Kevin Drum is thinking about debate formats:
Now, there's nothing wrong with a few beachballs. Giving every candidate a couple of minutes to simply explain their healthcare plan -- or whatever -- without interruption is fine. But then what? Do we really want several months of "debates" in which candidates do nothing but rattle off bits and pieces of their stump speeches endlessly?
The problem here is that he's asking the wrong question. There are far too many words in that last sentence, which really ought to be shortened to:
Do we really want several months of "debates?"
The answer is "no." Have a nice day.
Let me be perfectly clear:
I do not want several months of "debates" in which the candidates rattle off bits and pieces of their stump speeches.
I do not want several months of "debates" in which the candidates answer "gotcha" questions from tv journalists.
I do not want several months of "debates" in which the candidates answer pre-screened questions from "ordinary citizens" who have been carefully chosen to correspond to a particular view of what "ordinary citizens" look and act like.
I do not want several months of "debates" in which the candidates answer riddles posed to them by eleven-headed mythical monsters, with death as the penalty for a wrong answer.
I do not want several months of debates in which the candidates set their hair on fire and compete to see who can explain their universal health care plan before their eyeballs melt.
I could go on (and please, feel free to add more undesirable debate formats in the comments), but you get the idea. I do not want to see several months of "debates," period. End of sentence, end of subject, let's talk about something else.
We've already had several months of this campaign, and we haven't had a single goddamn primary yet, and won't for another couple of months. I am sick to death of hearing about the campaign. Enough.
The US is fighting two simultaneous wars, badly, and crazy people are agitating to start a third. Talk about that.
A cyclone just slammed into the southern part of Asia, killing or displacing thousands. Talk about that.
A scientist somewhere has just made a remarkable discovery. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm sure there is one. Talk about that.
Hell, I'm sure that a pretty blond woman has gone missing somewhere. At this point, I'm so sick of horse-race stories about politics, that I'd be happy to get saturation coverage of a damsel in distress. Talk about that, please.
But for the love of God, stop with the "debates."
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There are debates going on? I guess I missed them.
Seriously, I knew about the debates, but all I've watched are the little snippets that used to show up on the Daily Show (before the writer's strike). I've read a little of Drum's commentary and the commentary in other places, but clearly at this point there's not much point in debating. We need to wait and see who's going to self-disqualify by the week before the primaries start, *then* start debating.
Means of self-disqualification include, but are not limited to:
Sex with animals, children, or anyone you're not married to
Not raising enough money
Raising too much money from the wrong people
Saying something that pisses off the fundamentalists
Saying something that doesn't piss off the atheists
Saying something that seems racist/sexist (if democrat)
Saying something that pisses off racists/sexists (if republican)
No, wait - I really like this one. The monster can be animatronic and it could be a reality show - and really devours the candidates when they give talking-wank answers. Last candidate remaining gets to run against the other party's last remaining candidate.
I do not want several months of "debates" in which the candidates answer riddles posed to them by eleven-headed mythical monsters, with death as the penalty for a wrong answer.
I do not want several months of debates in which the candidates set their hair on fire and compete to see who can explain their universal health care plan before their eyeballs melt.
Actually, I'd be up for these. Here's a charity idea: raffle or auction off the ignition of the hair.
The only Presidential candidate displaying sentience beyond that evinced by a grasshopper's ass is Stephen Colbert('s writers). The Party of Bad Ideas versus the Party of Worse Ideas (superposition of states for both sides). It hits the fan when wavefunctions collapse into an observable 04 Nov 2008. "GARDYLOO!" and be damned.
A "debate" I'd like to see is just to put them all around a table, and have them talk to each other. Maybe have a moderator, not to ask questions, but just to make sure that one candidate or another didn't pig the conversation.
Make it look like a normal business meeting, and they could work on a consensus solution to a problem. Then we could really see what they were like and how they might be in the sorts of situations relevant to running a country.
A scientist somewhere has just made a remarkable discovery. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm sure there is one. Talk about that.
Okay, so wait. I agree with many things in this post, but this here is a particular kind of false dichotomy it's important not to fall into. The fact of the matter is that there is not some kind of choice to be made between excessive politics coverage and science coverage. There is not going to be tend to be any science coverage in the news even in non-election years. It's like when bjorn lomborg complains about global warming attention on the grounds that it takes attention away from malaria coverage; it doesn't follow, because we wouldn't be giving malaria any more attention if global warming was getting none, and either way the net effect of the complaint itself is to reduce interest in global warming, not promote interest in malaria. (The critical difference here, of course, being that you actually care about science coverage and have a history of legitimately making effort to promote public attention given to science; whereas lomborg does not actually care about malaria).
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As far as debates go, something I'm kind of starting to wish we'd do is let the primary candidates debate, you know, each other. Instead of these impossible 11-person debates where the candidates seem to be addressing the moderators more than each other. Just pair off Hillary and Edwards one night, Edwards and Obama another, whatever. We could make each debate a little shorter and it would probably take up about as much time as 10 10-person debates, and it might be more engaging to the viewer. The downside to this plan is nobody's going to want to debate Kucinich, but I don't think these 10-person monstrosities are really raising the hopeless-anyway profile of Kucinich and Biden (aka "third guy on right") any. Of course, I think the candidates, even the frontrunners who probably wish Kucinich and Biden would just go away, would prefer these faceless debates where they spend the whole time talking to the moderator. The goal of the modern politician seems to be to call as much attention to themselves without taking any risks...
The disturbing thing about this election is we've managed to suffer global election burnout while not actually getting anybody involved in the campaign.
I'd like to see a "debate" that was an actual debate. With a central thesis, arguments, conflict, and a resolution.
Or anything with genuine content. Anything but what we've had and are likely to have.
OK, no debates. Or "debates", if you prefer.
How then would you prefer the candidates make their case to you that they are fit to govern your country? If each candidate for president published a book about what he had in mind for the country, would you read it?
The disturbing thing about this election is we've managed to suffer global election burnout while not actually getting anybody involved in the campaign.
Well, the parties haven't even made their picks yet, so at this point I think it's ok for us civilians to tune out the arguments. The primary races can, I think, be left to the folks who make politics an avocation. But the media needs to find material to space out the ads every day, so they try to make the rest of us care about the process already.
How long do you think it would take to get a starfire wheel set up? Of course, we'll need to develop plasma technology first...