Debates

By Author: endeavor su
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In a national election, debates are the single most useful form of information available to voters. In debates, a large viewing audience has the opportunity to compare the candidates and their positions.

Debates provide the only direct comparison available in most campaigns. The results are beneficial to every segment of the viewing audience from the least to the best educated. Surveys have shown that after each presidential debate, viewers could more accurately identify and report the candidates' positions on the major issues debated.

Limitations Several factors minimize the ability of debates to communicate useful in-formation on issues.

First, the candidates' desire to protect themselves from gaffes leads them (1) to seek a panel of reporters, on the expectation that reporters will ask predictable questions; (2) to negotiate a format that includes only short answers, on the assumption that all possible questions can be anticipated and short answers prepared; and (3) to negotiate a format that denies reporters the ability to follow up their questions, on the assumption that inconsistencies ...
... and inaccuracies are less likely to be exposed if there are no follow-up questions.

Second, the press panelists tend to ask questions of more interest to a knowledge-able reporter than to an information-seeking voter. This flaw was remedied in the 1992 and 1996 campaigns, when in one of the candidate debates citizens asked questions directly of the presidential candidates.

Third, press coverage tends to reduce debates to one decisive moment. This focus distracts attention from information in the debate about the candidates and their positions. These supposedly decisive moments include, "There you go again," "Do you re-member when you said, 'There you go again?'" and "Senator, you are no John Kennedy."

They also include Clinton's claim in the first 1992 debate that George Bush's attacks on Clinton's patriotism betrayed Bush's father's memory. In the 1950s, Senator Prescott Bush had objected to the tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Fourth, the press focuses on the strategic intent of the candidates and on who won or lost the debate. There is no intelligent way to judge a win or loss.

More important is that the focus on winning and losing displaces other more useful discussions of what could be and should be learned from debates. An issue and tries to enhance the candidate's credibility and hence her or his image. It is more useful to recognize that stands on issues produce an image and that such "image" questions as trustworthiness and competence often are issues.

A more useful distinction separates the character, the natural temperament and disposition, and the relevant biography of the candidate from the specific legislative action that the candidate proposes.

A candidate might demonstrate her compassion, a facet of character, by indicating her strong support for Aid for Dependent Children, a policy position or stand on an issue. Since the early 1970s, voters have been telling pollsters that the character of the candidates is more important to them than the candidates' policy positions or stands on issues.

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