Having seven or eight candidates on a stage is just not conducive to debate, nor does it help distinguish one candidate from another: there's too little time to hash out opposing arguments. The large-group format does not serve us undecided voters well, even as the pool of candidates shrinks: a successful three-way debate is about as rare as a successful ménage à trois.
Imagine, if you will, a Presidential Debate League, wherein candidates debate each other, one-on-one, for an hour each night over the course of a regular season and playoffs. Imagine a moderator who acts as a referee, rewarding or penalizing candidates based on whether their arguments are self-consistent, topical, and factual. And now imagine that each of these debates is dedicated to a single issue, thereby informing us voters about the issues as well as the candidates’ grasp of the issues.
Join me below the fold as I briefly consider what the various debate formats thus far have achieved, and how we can combine their best features with the most exciting aspects of organized sports, toward the ultimate goal of better knowing our candidates and our issues.
The primary campaign is well underway, and I've seen several of the debates, but I'm dismayed: as much as I listen and as much as I read, I still don't know the candidates well. Granted, the problem lies partly in the moderators' stupid questions ("raise your hand if you approve of false dichotomies"), but it lies also in the seven-or-eight-candidate format.
While a Google search reveals that I'm not the first to think of the phrase "mass debating", I do believe it's an apt term for what we watch. The candidates gratify themselves by getting easy media exposure without answering tough questions; Wolf Blitzer and Brian Williams gratify themselves by talking a lot; the networks gratify themselves by creating spectacle and ad revenue. But there's little room for dialogue, for trading of ideas - there's no real intercourse - and we voters are left with little, if any, gratification.
Real debate occurs when candidates present contrasting positions and then attempt to resolve those differences. At worst, when the moderators are inept, we let the candidates get away with evasions, distortions, and strawmen. But even when the moderators are good, as they were in the YearlyKos and Olbermann/AFL-CIO events, we still don't get to touch on many issues in detail, because of the difficulty in accommodating so many candidates.
The LOGO forum had perhaps the most promising format we've seen yet this cycle. It was a serial interview: the candidates were not fighting one another for camera time, but rather each spoke separately with the moderators. These moderators didn't let the candidates get away with non-answers; they asked detailed questions about concrete matters of policy, and when candidates spoke evasively, the moderators pointed this out. This approach, by combining single-issue focus and no-nonsense moderation, minimized the sound-bites and allowed a voter to distinguish candidates' positions (to the extent that they differed at all). The drawback to the Logo approach was that the candidates didn't get to engage one another in dialogue, and they didn't get to resolve any of the issues on which they gave different answers.
Hence my first proposal: let's organize some one-on-one, single-issue debates. This way, we can maximize the candidates' speaking time while allowing them to interact with one another and directly address each other's arguments.
Here's an example of how the league's schedule might begin:
Week 1: Health Care Policy
- John Edwards vs Barack Obama
- Hillary Clinton vs Dennis Kucinich
- Chris Dodd vs Joe Biden
- Mike Gravel vs Bill Richardson
Week 2: National Defense Policy
- Chris Dodd vs John Edwards
- Barack Obama vs Hillary Clinton
- Joe Biden vs Mike Gravel
- Bill Richardson vs Dennis Kucinich
Week 3: Environmental Policy
- Hillary Clinton vs Bill Richardson
- John Edwards vs Joe Biden
- Barack Obama vs Chris Dodd
- Dennis Kucinich vs Mike Gravel
...and so on. Each debate would last one hour, with a new debate each night. Over the seven-week "season," every candidate would face every other candidate, which would allow voters to make direct comparisons between the candidates. At the end of the "regular season," there could be a tournament among the top-placing candidates, culminating in a final "World Series of Debate." The champion would receive no electoral prize, but there would surely be publicity involved; and along the way, the champion might just have won a few votes. So, the candidates would have more than just bragging rights at stake.
Next, we must set rules by which to guarantee the quality of debate. I've been upset when the moderators have let an evasive answer slide; it's important that our moderator recognize when someone hasn't answered a question, and likewise when someone gives a bogus argument. So, the moderator in this "debate league" would act as a referee, with the discretion to award points for valid arguments, and to take away points for self-contradiction, for digression, or for repetition of an argument that the opponent has already refuted.
Of course, it's important that the moderator not place him- or herself into the debate: we should find good and impartial moderators, who understand that they must restrain their own partisan or bloviatory impulses. So let's look past Wolf Blitzer and Brian Williams (and certainly George Stephanopoulos). Perhaps Jim Lehrer; perhaps Al Gore (that is, if he doesn't enter the race himself). Or better yet, Keith Olbermann, given his origins in sports broadcasting and his genuine interest in democracy. If these folks should be concerned with maintaining an air of impartiality in their day jobs as journalists, then we could find regular citizens to referee these debates. We would do well with high school debate coaches, or professors of Constitutional law.
Anyway, we'd have a league of individual debates, with referees to enforce the ground rules. We'd thus learn a lot more about our candidates and our issues. And beyond the benefits to public discourse, this format has one more advantage: it could become an extremely popular cultural phenomenon, because it is modeled explicitly after sports. A "Presidential Debate League" would be in much the same vein as "Celebrity Poker" or "Dancing With The Stars", except that the talent pool would probably be a lot deeper, and the competition would be fierce and exciting. (Heck, ESPN already televises the National Spelling Bee.) Fans could keep statistics: Joe Biden, leading the league in one-word answers... Bill Richardson, leading the league in "unforced errors"... Some folks might even start fantasy debate leagues, or brackets for the playoff tournament.
Furthermore, this format would benefit the media coverage of the race, and the media too. Number one, it would equalize the TV time for non-top-tier candidates (Dodd, Kucinich, etc.) Number two, there would be a different story every day in the newspapers, but it would be easy for the journalists to write. Number three, this would probably get good ratings, at least above most cable news programs'.
Again - there would be no direct electoral consequence of this tournament; the "champion" wouldn't be awarded a nomination or even any delegates at the Convention. The only way this would affect the outcome of the primaries would be the extent to which the fans became better informed about issues and candidates.
In summary, the benefits of this format include:
- Direct comparisons of candidates' positions and abilities
- A more thorough discussion of issues and policy, as in the Logo forum
- Equal exposure for lesser-known candidates
- Improved ratings, publicity, and voter attention, because it's a sporting event.
The only drawbacks that I foresee are:
- Voters who don't tune in every night may miss some debates. One obvious solution will be to post the video of these debates on the internets.
- Twenty-eight debates and then a "playoff" series will take a long time, and given that the candidates' schedules are thoroughly booked and that the primary schedule is accelerated almost every day, there may not be time to make this happen in full. I realize that this proposal is less-than-timely, especially with the recent news that Barack Obama is limiting his new debate commitments. But perhaps there would at least be time for a three-round "tournament"; we could still make a sporting event out of one-on-one, single-issue debates.
- "Top-tier" candidates might not agree to "legitimize" "lower-tier" candidates by giving them an equal forum. There have already been such complaints by some of the front-runners, speaking with regard to the traditional mass-debate format. But it would be awfully bad PR for any of the top-tier candidates to act this way; for if the "lesser" candidates in fact have worse ideas, then the "top-tier" candidates should be able to clean up. If this league were set up early enough in the election cycle, I think all the candidates would gladly commit to the whole thing.
Some of you might ask, "Isn't this idea doomed by the notoriously short American attention span, which can't follow the substance of an argument and can only tell who's on the attack?" And to those of you, I would respond that 1) the candidates would be scoring points more often than in any major sport but basketball; and 2) how do you know if you don't let us try?
I'm excited by this idea, and I'd like to make it happen. But I'd like your help with this, too - for how to improve upon this idea, and for how to organize it so that it might actually occur. So I'm asking for your suggestions, criticisms, ideas in the comments below.
Together, we can stop the candidates and traditional media from mass debating, and we can come up with a method of public discourse that will be more fulfilling for all.