Pro/Con: Do debates still matter?

Event serves as a window into the mind of candidates

As Americans flood the polling places to fill in the bubble for the next president of the United States, reflective voters must return to the focal point of this election season: the presidential debates.

John Sides, a professor of political science at Georgetown University, said in an article in the Washington Monthly that the four debates organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates drew in more Americans than any other broadcasted campaign event.

According to Nielson Co., the presidential debates played their traditional role in the evaluation of the candidates for more than 67 million Americans who watched the debate.

Even though Big Bird and horses and bayonets distract from substance, the presidential debates strengthen our voting process by challenging voters and candidates alike.

Each debate presents voters with more information than rallies, advertisements or news reports do. The candidates must simultaneously impress viewers with their plan for the nation as well as with their personality.

The presidential debates challenge voters to be thoroughly educated, providing front-row seats to political discourse. When political information typically flows through campaigns, news and social media before finally reaching the average voter, the debates offer a rare chance to compare the candidates in real time.

“By projecting the candidates into viewers’ homes and providing more three-dimensional portraits than ones provided by sound bites, airbrushed advertisements and position papers, (debates) provide voters with deeper, if largely intuitive, insights than they are usually given credit for,” Luther Spoehr, a senior lecturer at Brown University, explained in an article for the History News Network.

Only the debates allow candidates to relate personal anecdotes, policy prescriptions and rebuttals in the same place. Furthermore, the presidential debates set the agenda for what issues will be discussed in the final weeks of the election. Benjamin Knoll, professor of government at Centre College, argued in his article for the Huffington Post that the tone leading up to Election Day is determined by the questions moderators ask and the answers candidates provide.

The presidential debates test the candidates’ policy knowledge as well as their people skills. Historically, candidates grapple with portraying a consistently positive persona during the debates. Answering the question is important, but an ill-timed smirk, sigh or laugh costs credibility.

George H. W. Bush lost credibility during his 1992 presidential debate against Bill Clinton, appearing uninterested by glancing at his watch throughout the debate. A similar gaffe occurred in 2000 when Al Gore sighed repetitively, creating the unattractive persona of a politician annoyed with his opponent, George W. Bush.

History has repeated itself during the 2012 debates. Vice President Joe Biden chuckled, smirked and frequently interrupted during his debate against representative Paul Ryan. During the first presidential debate, President Obama was described as disconnected by live social commentary on Twitter and YouTube Politics. Being unguarded for just an instant can leave a candidate open to vicious reviews from millions of watchful eyes around the country.

Political analysts may question whether the presidential debates will change the election outcome, but they ignore the unique attributes of the debate cycle. Without the debates, voters lack a comprehensive look at the candidate’s platforms as well as their communication skills. The issues leading up to election day would remain confused if candidates did not have the opportunity to appeal directly to the American people. Whichever candidate wins the presidency, he will not gain the honor without garnering respect during the debates.

Dialogue offers a lot of style, but little of substance

The presidential debates have featured punch lines instead of policy and a bigger focus on appearance and style rather than the candidates’ positions. A candidate’s aggresiveness was valued by viewers as much as, if not more than, their planning.

The result was 90 minutes of jokes and talking points that are largely devoid of substance.

One main problem is that the candidates had little time to respond to issues. For most questions, candidates were provided two minutes to give their answer, hardly enough time to get into any detail about their policies. Instead, both sides would often simply repeat their many campaign points rather than give more detail. Candidates had enough time to say what they want to do, but never enough to say how they are going to do it.

Without the time to fully elaborate on their policies, candidates resorted to other means to win the audience over with a large focus on making short, funny points to distract from real issues.

“Mr. President, you’re entitled as the president to your own airplane and to your own house, but not to your own facts,” Romney said in response to Obama’s statements about the governor’s position on education.

“We have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military’s changed,” Obama said later, accusing Romney of being ignorant about the military.

Funny lines and biting sarcasm can be used to make effective points, but they also have the effect of overshadowing everything else.

A related problem is that there has been an increasing focus on how the candidates speak, not on what they say. Many thought Romney won the first debate because he came off as much more aggressive than the laid-back Obama.

“Mitt Romney and his team are reveling in the Republican nominee’s post-debate reviews, which generally give him high marks for being aggressive compared with President Obama’s more muted performance,” Catalina Camia of USA Today said.

Although the way a presidential candidate carries himself is important, the validity and practicality of their words should hold even more merit to voters. Yet, too often, their statements are tossed aside.

If candidates realize that voters are more influenced by their tone and demeanor than their credibility and stances, we will be stuck with debates bursting with unproductive one-line comebacks.

The system has been better.

The Washington Post pointed out that the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephan Douglas during the 1858 senate elections stood in stark contrast to the current format. During Douglas and Lincoln’s seven debates, the first speaker would speak for 60 minutes, the second would respond for 90 minutes and then the first would get 30 minutes to respond.

This format may not be a perfect solution to the current setup, but it does show that there was a time when politicians could fully explain and defend their beliefs in a way that the current debate format does not allow.

Yet as long as candidates get only two minutes to answer questions and audiences continue to cheer jokes and insults, basing results on how aggressive a candidate was, these debates will continue to be uninformative.

Future presidential candidates have the power to fix this. According to an LA Times article by analyst James Rainey, candidates suggest debate rules and format, which are then voted upon by the Commission of Presidential Debates. If candidates truly wanted change, a term that has been recently thrown around so loosely, they could have it.

It is time to have a debate about the debates. The current format is neither useful, nor informative, and the means of correction are readily available.