Obama May Have Won Debate, But Moderators Have Become the Big Losers

I have just one plea for Bob Schieffer, the next 70-something TV anchor preparing to quiz the two candidates for president in the third and final presidential debate Oct. 15.

Please, actually moderate the debate. Please.

Becuase, if there's been any clear loser in these presidential election debates, with a VP clash and two presidential candidate forums behind us, it has clearly been the moderators.

NBC's Tom Brokaw was the most recent eminence to fall prey to these "debates," in which the candidates talked over their time limits, disregarded questions they didn't feel like answering and were handed mushy queries like "Is health care a commodity?" and "Tell me what the Obama or McCain Doctrine would be regading use of force in a stopping a humanitarian crisis." (Um, would the doctrine be something like 'genocide is bad?')

To be fair, Brokaw had a little help. As usual with town hall-type debates in this league, the average-joe questioners were a bit too intimidated to lean into their questions, which had all the spice of inquiries which had been carefully pre-chewed and reassembled by a staff of NBC News producers.

It's an old argument, I know: That negotiating over formats and the constant spin about media bias has helped defang the modern-day presidential moderator. But if candidates feel free to disregard the stated and unstated rules of the debate -- I mean, when has a candidate started one of these things by actually admitting they won't necessarily answer the questions, as Palin did last week? -- shouldn't moderators feel free to take off the gloves, too?

It didn't much matter what the questions were, anyway -- often they were just a springboard for both John McCain and Barack Obama to launch into the answers they had prepared for their own specific goals. For McCain, the goal was to attack Obama while looking like he is offering real policy alternatives, and for Obama, it was to stand up to Old Man McCain with a cool assurance that made the senior senator look like the impetuous hothead of the two.

Because both men largely succeeded in their efforts, Obama won -- both because he had inexplicably low expectations going into the debate (hasn't this guy been taking public questions during campaign stops for, like 18 months now?) and because McCain's increasingly erratic campaign has the 26-year veteran of Congress struggling to stay in the game. Don't believe me: Fox News, CNN, CBS and MSNBC all polled or consulted groups of undecided voters and concluded Obama won.

I didn't take much exception to McCain referring to Obama as "that one" or seeming to imply that a black questioner had never heard of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac -- though I think McCain did himself no favors with those references. Instead, I think his increasingly personalized attacks on Obama made him look petty, while his opponent focused on looking presidential and above the fray.

My favorite moment came when Obama insisted on responding to McCain more directly, pushing Brokaw into bending the rules of the evening so they could have -- gasp! -- an actual debate. Circling each other like impatient used car salesmen, Obama and McCain tangled on health care policy and foreign policy in a way that felt less like two successive stump speeches; too bad that moment came more than halfway through the 90-minute debate.

I'm hoping Schieffer wil take a cue from that moment, and take every opportunity to remind each man when his time for speechifying is over, and push them to actually answer questions they are asked.

Because it is possible to have a debate -- even under the mushy rules OK'd by the presidential debate commission -- if the moderator takes his title a bit more seriously.

Read more reactions to the Obama-McCain Town Hall Debate from HuffPost bloggers

Follow Eric Deggans on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Deggans

Comments

[groucho]

It's time to go back to debates hosted by the League of Women Voters. These reporters are incapable of hosting an informative debate. I loved when he had to ask the candidates to move, he couldn't even "do it live" to announce the next debate. What a boob.
Except for demeanor, I don't feel I learn much more from these debates as a result of the bartering they do beforehand on questions and structure.

[LewDan]

So what if they exceeded time limits? The purpose of the debate wasn't to follow the rules. The rules were simply to give structure to the debate. No candidate was disadvantaged. And some of us were more interested in what the candidates had to say than how well they colored within the lines.

[Pdubya]

Its called the Presidential Commission on Debates. When Dukakis and Daddy Bush secretly met to lay out their debate agenda, they then sent it to the League of Women Voters for their "approval" in sponsoring the debate. Their reply? "This would constitute a fraud to the American People".

"Poof", the Presidential Commission on Debates. Run by? A past chair of the RNC and past chair of the DNC. They decide what is to be talked about, what is not to be talked about, who is to attend and who is to be excluded.

Its called a plutocracy. And with this bailout it has become a hostile fascist takeover.

Neither candidate will:

Repeal the Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act or FISA
return to a non-intervention foreign policy
sound money and ending the fed's authority to create inflation out of thin air

Without these, all of the esoteric nuances these candidates sh*t out of their mouths are moot. We're doomed to a new currency, the New World Order, less liberty and no sovereignty.

Unless we keep up the fight for our constitution and don't vote for either one of these puppets.

[Poboy]

Bush I delivered the Republicans to these Fascists, something even Reagan didn't do.

Clinton delivered the Democrats.

They are "good friends" because both accomplished the mission and both have been rewarded handsomely.

NEVER should another Bush or Clinton, nor their protégés, come anywhere near the White House.

[Blk independant]

Brokaw was dry. He could not keep either candidate in line. He clearly has an McCain bias. Ive watche MTP lately and he is no Russert. He could have picked better questions out of the 6 million or so he supposedly recieved!

[odoreida]

Brokaw seemed to be having trouble with his voice. Did anybody else notice that? IMO, Gwen Ifill has been the best moderator so far, but Brokaw was pretty good. The debate isn't supposed to be about the moderators.

[Sawgrass]

Have there been any positive reviews of Brokaw's performance from any part of the political spectrum? I have not seen one yet. Though a call for better moderator performance is needed, Brokaw seemed singularly bad. By comparison, Jim Lehr received many accolades for his moderation skills.

Brokaw is culpable for the questions selected, too; they do make a difference. These questions posed by Brokaw were not worthy of the occasion:

"This requires only a yes or a no. [...] Do you think that Russia under Vladimir Putin is an evil empire?"

"What don't you know and how will you learn it?"

I appreciate asking unexpected questions, but surely Brokaw could have found something with substance. This question might as well been the typical interview question of, "What is your biggest weakness?" I don't have a sense that Brokaw did any heavy lifting as he prepared for this debate.

[hopeless277]

These 'debates' are a sham in the first place. The 'group' that runs the debates consist of the Republican and Democratic PARTIES. All they really want is to showcase their entry in the horse race. They ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT TO INFORM OR CHALLENGE. Their only goal is to not screw up. So first and foremost these debates are just for show and nothing else. And as for the questions? Pitiful. I thought I was watching a beauty contest. Brokaw and his time problem drove us nuts. This is a goddamned job interview to hire someone to decide whether or not to use nuclear weapons. Bottom line: this country is over and no amount of bullshit will restart it again. Welcome to Bushland.

[SpoxLogic]

What did you expect? If both camps can "negotiate" the format before hand, they surely can ignore it at the actual event if they want to.

The "debate commission" (I paraphrase), should be the one laying down the rules and the candidates should have to either abide by them or not show up. One of the candidates WILL want to show up no matter the rules, which would force the other to come.

But, as usual, this horse has done ran out of the barn is almost to the next county, so I don't see it ever happening the way I mentioned.