I remember the good old days when "The League of Woman Voters" (public interest group) would run the Presidential Debates and candidates were allowed to speak in depth for much more than 30 seconds.
It occurs to me that these Corp. TV Network run Debates of the modern era are setup and run in a perverse way that is quite contrary to informing the public or discussing the actual issues in any meaningful manner.
Remember in 2004 when Ted Koppel just wasted the first 45 minutes of the debate (and everyone's time) by peppering all the candidates on their "response to Howard Dean's fundraising" numbers. He even misused the platform himself to opine out loud that Dennis Kucinich and other candidates should get out of the race! Fortunately, Dennis Kucinich admonished him back (about 45 minutes into it) and the audience in the room spontaneously stood up and cheered.
Well, last night you had Brian Williams misuse the forum again to try and get the candidates to disagree with Harry Reid. A question would be asked and then they would cut off people after just two sentences were said. And, in a total unfair and arbitrary manner, they would raise a question and then demand an answer from 3 or 4 of the 8 candidates, but then switch the question before calling on the other people, so that there was no continuity to the debate and no proper flow of information.
How can the public ever become informed about anything with 30 seconds answers and arbitrary rules about who is called on and who is not?
The Democratic Candidates and their campaigns should recognize that this format does not serve the public interest, it only just wastes an opportunity to actually learn something about the candidates in any detail, or compare and contrast positions.
It seems to me that the Corp. TV Networks simply micro-manage the discussion and answers to ensure that there is no serious, in-depth, discussion about anything and as a result the forum's only real function is to provide some simplistic sound bites that the GOP and their media assets can then turn around and use against the Democrats to reduce them into easily lampooned charactures of themselves.
For example, do we know now what everybody's position is on health care?
I happened to know what Kucinich's position is but he was never even called on when the question came up.
So, the question is, don't the Democrats recognize and understand that the more informed that the voters are, the more likely that they will favor the Democratic message over the Republican/Media message?
It is only the "dumbing down" of the population that keeps the GOP in power.
They should all make a pact together and say: "We want a format where we are allowed to talk in detail about the issues and the policies, and where all the candidates are given the opportunity to respond to each of the question that are posed (not some arbitrary pick and choose game)."
The U.S. Media could give a rats ass about the actual issues or about informing the public. They just want superficial theater because it then allows them to advance whatever impressions that they want to create about the candidates.
The Democratic Candidates themselves should realize that handing the control over to the U.S. Media is detrimental to getting their own message and policy positions out to the public.
It just trivializes the whole process.
And that's bad for voter turnout and bad for Democrats in general.
Demand a format where the public can actually learn and be informed!
The votes then will follow.