[TV orNotTV] Debate II

[PGage]

Without getting too much into how the two participants did, I thought the two moderators, Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz, really did a good job. That thought forced me to ask myself what my criteria for a good debate moderator were. In the past I probably leaned towards wanting the least intrusive moderator possible, who allowed the participants significant leeway in violating agreed upon rules and tried to avoid making themselves the story. Arguably that has never been a good model for a TV presidential debate moderator, but almost certainly, with Trump in play, it now is not. Cooper and Raddatz both had to work hard tonight, and had to inject themselves into things quite a bit, but I think it resulted in a much more fair and substantive exchange - and they actually covered quite a bit of ground. I suspect Trump partisans are pissed, but they oughtn't be; the moderators (and here I suppose I am getting into my view of how the participants did) probably saved the debate for Trump by shutting down several of his more unstable and incoherent rants during the first third of the debate, enforcing time limits, and allowing more questions to be asked. Trump did much better in the last two thirds of the debate - I would say that part of the show was basically a draw, after coming across as a mad man in the first half hour. If the perception of this debate is that it was close or a draw, it will only be because of the hard work and professionalism of the two moderators. I also wonder if it helps to have two moderators work this kind of circus.

[Kevin M.]

It was not a debate. The moderators didn't moderate. Candidates were not made to answer the questions asked. Candidates (one significantly more than the other) interrupted each other. The audience interrupted repeatedly. As theater, I suppose it was entertaining; as a debate, voters would've gotten more information had both candidates simply each sent out a single Tweet. 

In short I humbly disagree. 

On Sunday, October 9, 2016, PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

Without getting too much into how the two participants did, I thought the two moderators, Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz, really did a good job. That thought forced me to ask myself what my criteria for a good debate moderator were. In the past I probably leaned towards wanting the least intrusive moderator possible, who allowed the participants significant leeway in violating agreed upon rules and tried to avoid making themselves the story. Arguably that has never been a good model for a TV presidential debate moderator, but almost certainly, with Trump in play, it now is not. Cooper and Raddatz both had to work hard tonight, and had to inject themselves into things quite a bit, but I think it resulted in a much more fair and substantive exchange - and they actually covered quite a bit of ground. I suspect Trump partisans are pissed, but they oughtn't be; the moderators (and here I suppose I am getting into my view of how the participants did) probably saved the debate for Trump by shutting down several of his more unstable and incoherent rants during the first third of the debate, enforcing time limits, and allowing more questions to be asked. Trump did much better in the last two thirds of the debate - I would say that part of the show was basically a draw, after coming across as a mad man in the first half hour. If the perception of this debate is that it was close or a draw, it will only be because of the hard work and professionalism of the two moderators. I also wonder if it helps to have two moderators work this kind of circus.

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[PGage]

Well, I think it has been established a long time ago that we use the term "debate" to refer to these events, even if they are not quite Oxford style. I was part of a debating team in my youth, but I don't sweat the terminology.

But I disagree with the claim that viewers did not get much information about the two candidates; on the contrary, for 90 minutes, if you did not know anything about these two people, you would have learned quite a bit about both of them (Health Care policy, Syria Policy, Tax Policy). What is hard to believe is that any serious voter by this late date does not already know almost everything there is to know about their positions.

[Henry Fung]

Martha Raddatz specifically interjected several times to force Trump to answer on Syria. Other than ringing a loud buzzer or repeating "your time has expired" repeatedly like what happened in the California senate debate, both candidates are going to keep talking past the limit. The debates really need to be longer - three hours at a minimum, with allowance for ten minute intermissions between the first and second hours - but given only 90 minutes of time, they did the best job possible, and better than Lester Holt who was just bowled over.

[Doug Eastick]

I liked that Merriam Webster tweeted that one of the top five searches during the debate was "what's a lepo".

On Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 2:32 AM Henry Fung <calw...@gmail.com> wrote:

Martha Raddatz specifically interjected several times to force Trump to answer on Syria. Other than ringing a loud buzzer or repeating "your time has expired" repeatedly like what happened in the California senate debate, both candidates are going to keep talking past the limit. The debates really need to be longer - three hours at a minimum, with allowance for ten minute intermissions between the first and second hours - but given only 90 minutes of time, they did the best job possible, and better than Lester Holt who was just bowled over.

On Sun, Oct 9, 2016 at 10:46 PM, PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

Well, I think it has been established a long time ago that we use the term "debate" to refer to these events, even if they are not quite Oxford style. I was part of a debating team in my youth, but I don't sweat the terminology.

But I disagree with the claim that viewers did not get much information about the two candidates; on the contrary, for 90 minutes, if you did not know anything about these two people, you would have learned quite a bit about both of them (Health Care policy, Syria Policy, Tax Policy). What is hard to believe is that any serious voter by this late date does not already know almost everything there is to know about their positions.

On Sun, Oct 9, 2016 at 10:10 PM, Kevin M. <drunkba...@gmail.com> wrote:

It was not a debate. The moderators didn't moderate. Candidates were not made to answer the questions asked. Candidates (one significantly more than the other) interrupted each other. The audience interrupted repeatedly. As theater, I suppose it was entertaining; as a debate, voters would've gotten more information had both candidates simply each sent out a single Tweet. 

In short I humbly disagree. 

On Sunday, October 9, 2016, PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

Without getting too much into how the two participants did, I thought the two moderators, Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz, really did a good job. That thought forced me to ask myself what my criteria for a good debate moderator were. In the past I probably leaned towards wanting the least intrusive moderator possible, who allowed the participants significant leeway in violating agreed upon rules and tried to avoid making themselves the story. Arguably that has never been a good model for a TV presidential debate moderator, but almost certainly, with Trump in play, it now is not. Cooper and Raddatz both had to work hard tonight, and had to inject themselves into things quite a bit, but I think it resulted in a much more fair and substantive exchange - and they actually covered quite a bit of ground. I suspect Trump partisans are pissed, but they oughtn't be; the moderators (and here I suppose I am getting into my view of how the participants did) probably saved the debate for Trump by shutting down several of his more unstable and incoherent rants during the first third of the debate, enforcing time limits, and allowing more questions to be asked. Trump did much better in the last two thirds of the debate - I would say that part of the show was basically a draw, after coming across as a mad man in the first half hour. If the perception of this debate is that it was close or a draw, it will only be because of the hard work and professionalism of the two moderators. I also wonder if it helps to have two moderators work this kind of circus.

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[Marti Lawrence]

In the future, the moderators should be allowed to fit a shock collar on both nominees, and zap them whenever there is an interruption or continued talking past time allotted.

And of course Trump was sniffling because he is a cocaine addict, and Hillary is a robot from Westworld because a fly landed on her face and she didn't flinch.  At least that is what all-knowing Twitter says :-) 

[Kevin M.]

Instead of a shock collar, hook them up to lie detectors 

On Monday, October 10, 2016, Marti Lawrence <martil...@gmail.com> wrote:

In the future, the moderators should be allowed to fit a shock collar on both nominees, and zap them whenever there is an interruption or continued talking past time allotted.

And of course Trump was sniffling because he is a cocaine addict, and Hillary is a robot from Westworld because a fly landed on her face and she didn't flinch.  At least that is what all-knowing Twitter says :-) 

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[Brad Beam]

From: tvor...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tvor...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Marti Lawrence

>In the future, the moderators should be allowed to fit a shock collar on both nominees, and zap them whenever there is an interruption or continued talking past time allotted.

And of course Trump was sniffling because he is a cocaine addict, and Hillary is a robot from Westworld because a fly landed on her face and she didn't flinch.  At least that is what all-knowing Twitter says :-) 

 

Or, as was suggested in USA Today’s “For The Win” blog, bring in Tony Reali, host of ESPN’s “Around The Horn.”

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/10/tony-reali-presidential-debate-moderator

 

_  _

|_>|_>  Brad Beam- Belle WV

|_>|_>  http://www.facebook.com/74bmw

[PGage]

Again, I think the information content in a typical presidential debate is chronically underestimated. Clearly there is a lot of BS - but that is true in every phase of the process. If all an othwise informed US voter knew about these two candidates was what they learned from watching the debates, they would certainly have enough information to pretty accurately understand their differences on many of the important issues of the day.

As we all remember from our junior high school history classes (and now I guess from Broadway Musicals) democracy has always been a high BS enterprise. That is part of the price we pay. All the more reason it is important to have some ways of managing the BS and try to keep the playing field level. I thought the moderators last night did about as good a job as I have ever seen under unusually difficult circumstances.

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[Kevin M.]

On Monday, October 10, 2016, PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

Again, I think the information content in a typical presidential debate is chronically underestimated. Clearly there is a lot of BS - but that is true in every phase of the process. If all an othwise informed US voter knew about these two candidates was what they learned from watching the debates, they would certainly have enough information to pretty accurately understand their differences on many of the important issues of the day.

I don't dispute information was desciminated. What I claim is the moderators had next to no control over what information (talking points/passages from stump speech) the candidates chose to offer. The very first question was about what the candidates would tell children -- neither candidate came close to an answer. And it was like that most of the evening. 

The biggest obstacle in trying to get information from these two particular candidates is in order to get to the information, voters have to endure name calling, shouting, accusations, and interruptions. I don't know how many voters came from a home where parents fought, but from my experience, when mommy and daddy argue, the kids cover their ears and look away until the shouting stops. Yes, Hilary offered specific details about her health care plan, but to get to it, voters had to endure the proverbial mommy and daddy fighting... if I was an undecided voter, I would not be motivated to listen to anything said after one candidate repeatedly calls the other a liar and one candidate threatens the other with prison. A debate moderator is charged with keeping the candidates in check. At best, last night's moderators served as time-keepers. 

As we all remember from our junior high school history classes (and now I guess from Broadway Musicals) democracy has always been a high BS enterprise. That is part of the price we pay. All the more reason it is important to have some ways of managing the BS and try to keep the playing field level. I thought the moderators last night did about as good a job as I have ever seen under unusually difficult circumstances.

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[PGage]

I don't think we wand the moderators to control what kind of information the candidates offer. It is up to the voters to reward or punish candidates who choose to offer less information. Indeed, I think we are seeing evidence that this is what is happening; most observers thought that Trump spent more time in both debates avoiding and deflecting, he was judged to have lost both debates, and his polling numbers went way down after the first, and may well go down after the second (it will be hard to determine this for sure, as it will interact with the Video fall out).

In Debate II the moderators were not tasked with asking questions, but they were involved in selecting questions, and did follow up. There were several non-substantive questions (particularly the first that you mention, and the last), but even these were not of the "boxers or briefs" variety, and were at least to some extent relevant to the decision voters have to make, in terms of character and temperament. But there really were a number of very substantive questions, about energy and Syria and tax policy, about Hillary's relationship with Wall Street and her email issues, about Trump's video comments (Cooper held his feet to the fire on this, and insisted on referring to it as "sexual assault", and got Trump to go on the record denying that he had ever done any of the things he boasted about, which will be a problem if anyone later goes on the record saying that Trump groped or kissed them without permission.

I am not by any means defending the dignity of the events, or saying they are ideal ways of communicating with voters. But I doubt many Americans actually get anywhere near as much substantive information in any 90 minute block of time during the entire year as they do during the debates. I don't know if you have ever read the Lincoln-Douglas Debates (or watched the great series on C-Span some years ago), which are often assumed to be the gold standard for debates. They are fascinating, but I doubt very much that the current American electorate would really be up for a three hour debate consisting of first a 60 minute speech, then a 90 minute speech, then a 30 minute response. If it were up to me they would have fewer questions and maybe 5 minutes for each response, rather than 2 minutes, but as it is I still think they serve a useful purpose. And I would rate the moderators from Sunday night as the best of the last three cycles or so.