Four Ways to Civilize and Simplify Debates

No picket signs, no shouting crowds, no "spin alley," no corporate sponsorship, no bread, no circuses, and perhaps best of all, no live audience. Today's presidential debates have become unserious to the point of self-parody. They have strayed from the original, the first national presidential debate in 1960.

On Sept. 26, 1960, Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy arrived with no hoopla at the studios of WBBM-TV, the CBS affiliate in Chicago. The producer-director was Don Hewitt, later the guiding genius of "60 Minutes."

For the first time in U.S. history, presidential nominees of the two major parties faced each other in televised debate. More than 66 million Americans tuned in. The quiet atmosphere that evening didn't see that historic to witnesses.

"You don't always know when history is unfolding before you," Sander Vanocur, a panelist then with NBC News told me this week. "I didn't know how Nixon looked because I was there, in living color. I had no idea how he looked in black-and-white" (the way nearly every household saw the debate).

Across the hall, another giant of journalism sat at his typewriter, wearing headphones. Facing an early deadline for the first edition of The New York Times, Russell Baker did so to concentrate on what the candidates said. "I listened to the debate instead of watching it," he recalled, "Throughout, I thought Nixon was ahead on points. Afterwards, I saw Pierre Salinger and the Kennedy people smiling and slapping each on the back. Voters saw a different debate from the one I heard."

A week earlier, campaigning in North Carolina, Nixon had injured his knee, which became infected and hospitalized him. He had lost 10 pounds and a lot of sleep. Wearing a gray suit, he arrived at a gray studio, which his handlers had been trying to re-arrange and even repaint all day. That bad precedent leads to one firm rule for the Commission on Presidential Debates: Choose a place and a format, then stick to it.

According to Theodore H. White's Making of the President 1960, "furniture, desks, lecterns, background had been arranged and rearranged" at the behest of Nixon's television advisers. The gray backdrop? "Several times that day it was repainted -- but each time the gray tone dried light...Nixon, in his light suit, faded into a fuzzed outline." The reality could not be concealed: Nixon, through no fault of his own, looked ghastly. His radio-rich baritone was of little help. The lesson for future debates is: give the interior-decorator consultancy of each campaign ample advance information, then no more fiddling.

Moderators should not be potted plants. Jim Lehrer was ignored, Gwen Ifill was bulldozed, and I haven't seen Tom Brokaw treated so shabbily since he and I covered the Nixon White House. The long-term answer may be a return to a panel of reporters, which might make candidates more polite.

When two senators are on stage together, we realize that "senatorial courtesy" means rules are for others. The Senate side of the Capitol loves rambling unlimited debate, but in the House, a one-minute or five-minute rule is the norm. Shouldn't a president be clear and concise on issues? Candidates seem to ignore the signals of blinking lights, so let's install an emphatic alarm that sounds somewhere between a fart and a fire engine.

Unplug the mid-debate plebiscite carnival crawl. The cable networks should shut down the clutter of dials, lights, balloons, bells and whistles. Cacophony is not information. The evening is about the fate of the Republic, not "Dancing With the Stars."

Make third parties earn their way into a debate. On deciding whether or not to include a third-party candidate, don't consult public opinion polls. Any ego-tripping billionaire can buy attention. Some third parties have installed a primary system to work towards parity. They just need some voters. In 2008, more than 37 million Democrats voted for their favorite candidate. Almost 21 million Republicans did likewise. Successful parties start on the local and congressional level. That's what the Whigs and the Republicans did.

After 48 years, some verities remain. "My assignment that night in Chicago was to cover the debate and I made the same mistake Nixon did. I assumed it would be a debate" Baker says. It's not a debate, of course, but a joint appearance, where appearances count.
"I watch Obama when McCain is talking and see the same half- smile or quarter-smile of Kennedy's," Vanocur recalls. "It's respectful, but quizzical, slightly skeptical." The former NBC stalwart no longer philosophizes about politics. "I've formed a more profound conclusion," Vanocur says. "Presidential candidates in a television debate should never wear a gray suit."

Comments

[Skua]

Actually I just about completely disagree with the idea that the candidates should keep their answers down to one or two minutes.

I suppose people might agree that the Lincoln-Douglas debates were good debates? That they told people something about the candidates and the issues? Their format was: A for 60 minutes, B for 90 minutes, A for 30 minutes. No questions from any moderator! The candidates got to say for themselves what the important issues were.

A modern variant might be: 10/15/5 minutes on foreign policy, 10/15/5 minutes on health care, and so on.

The short-answer format favors the candidate who stands on a slogan or sound bite over the candidate who wants to give a serious and comprehensive answer.

The short-answer format also completely favors smears. Candidate A is free to throw out five or six smears or talking points that Candidate B has no chance of dealing with in one minute. How about for example McCain's charge that Obama voted to raise taxes 94 times? Give Obama 3 or 4 minutes and he could shoot it down and bury it forever in front of a national audience.

The House rules for allocating limited time among 435 people are irrelevant.

[arrogantsob]

The idea of these debates is not to give your opponent ammunition to use against you. So to help the economic problem, we need more revenue ie. taxes and less spending namely cuts in military spending, no candidate will say this as his opponent will jump down his throat with you will raise taxes and allow terrorists to attack the United States. We need to cut spending on the war on drugs and have a more liberal drug policy but these are buzz words for you want to make America a drug haven where everyone will be stoned all the time. Politics has become a sport like football where you cheer for your team and cheating doesn't matter as long as you win the election . Instead of both parties working for the betterment of the country, it has come to a race for power and greed with lies and dirt being the currency of the day.

[Marlyn]

"might make candidates more polite." ???

Are you suggesting that Barack Obama has been anything other than polite?

[1will]

The debates today are largely useless. In the age of the internet a voter has ample time to find out everything he/she needs to know about the candidates. There are 24/7 cable news channels, the internet and even old fashioned newspapers.
So what does the debate give us? We get to see a (usually biased) moderator ask the candidates a question about huge problems that may be complex and took years to build. The candidates then get 2 minutes to sum up the problem and solution. This is basicaly crap. The candidate thanks the moderator, thanks the American people and the host. He/She then gets in a quick attack on the opponent and spends the remaining 30 seconds getting in a soundbite solution.
The debates show us which candidate is the most attractive, the best speaker and who has the best stage presence. It does nothing to show who would be the best President. I've seen Superbowl comericials that last longer than the time period the candidates get to speak about the mortgage meltdown. Unfortunately many Americans have short childlike attention spans and all they want is a soundbite.

[robotsoul]

There is some value in determining which candidate is better at selling a policy. There is an art to describing complex issues simply, it is a mark of intelligence. Unfortunately, when it comes to running a country every question is complicated and nuanced. Despite the flaws of the current debate system(which I agree damage the process and often lack substance) it does offer certain benefits that are useful to voters when they form the criteria by which they judge candidates. Debates as they are now allow viewers to get at least a sense of how each candidate makes decisions and of how they view problem solving. Mc Cain is brash and instinctual, Obama is contemplative, and careful. Do debates give insight into policy? Not really. By they provide insight about candidates which is important and necessary.

[WmC]

What I consider the worst feature of the "debates" is the way the format allows the candidates to avoid answering questions. Candidates should be confronted with questions that require "Yes, No, I don't know" responses (before launching into talking points) and moderators should be allowed to follow up until the candidate answers simply, or openly refuses to answer.

[freebeer]

Yes, WmC. But what you want is NOT what both parties want. Both parties together have killed the debate process.
It used to be run by the league of women voters.
But both parties wanted less substance and they worked together to block third party inclusion. This exclusive club serves the corporate elite of American and only pretends to care about the American people.

Here is what the League of Women Voters had to say when they were finally beat down by Democrats and Republicans to a point where they were excluded from running the debates.

"The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship of the presidential debates...because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public."

Republicans and Democrats working together to "perpetrate a fraud on the American people". Just like they did with the Wall street theft, just like they did with our wars for oil, not impeaching Bush, and on and on.

[WritingFrontier]

Here's a good story on exactly how best to civilize the Presidential debates. See Writing Frontier's "That's not debatable" at

http://writingfrontier.com/2008/10/04/thats-not-debatable/

[newshawk14]

I suspect that the only way to get the candidates to observe the time signals, would be to attach
electrodes to their privates. It's tough to make your point, when your voice has just gone up an
octave or two.

[Querent]

Brokaw gets an F. He's a fussy, self-important, not very smart right-winger with little of interest to contribute, although his ego requires him to contribute. His questions were childish, his attempts to control the proceedings were ridiculous, and his open display of petulance just made him look stupid. Also, I don't believe he is or ever was a real journalist.

Gwen Ifill at least kept her self-importance under control. Her questions were much better than Brokaw's, and people were more than able to assess Palin's inability to answer them without the need for any comment from Ifill. She gets a B-.

Jim Lehrer made himself look a little foolish by insisting that the candidates speak to each other, but his questions were good caliber. He lost points for his time-wasting comments about timing issues. He gets a B.

I think Biden may have clinched the electoral win by proving convincingly that McCain is not a Maverick, but is just another clueless Bush enabler. He cited the votes on the big issues that prove it.

And all of you purists who complain that these are not "real" debates: your local high-school has debates, and the public is allowed to attend. How many of you do? So why pretend that "debate" is really important to you?

[joebiz]

You call those "press confrences" debates?

Real debate is a give and take, it's questioning the other side, it's trying to trap the opponent, it's making the other side look like a fool, and it's all about bringing up politics and political issues to the forefront.

[grendl]

The largest problem with the debates, is there's really no debating going on.

The back and forth doesn't exist. It's all two to five minutes of talking points, let's move on to the next topic, and when a candidate asks for a chance to respond to their opponents accusations the moderators almost sigh audibly exasperated that someone actually wants to defend themselves.

And for this upcoming debate, I hope some electronic location device or GPS is attached to McCain in case he wanders off again.