Forget the journalists as moderators! Let them remain the copper wire, not the electricity! Let’s have real debates between the two nominees for President and the two Vice-President running mates!
There are professional, academic debate specialists in the universities and secondary schools who will not interpose their own roles between the candidates and the issues. They know debate. They know what argumentation is. It is NOT what we have seen when managed by the TV and newspaper newsgatherers who are wannbe stars of their own shows. The questions they present to the candidates are ripped from the latest headline-news and regard the candidates personalities too much. The reporters do not know how to frame propositions that make good debates sharpen the issues that are most important to the debaters and the people.
It is very important to have a debate, which is a series of speeches. It is extremely important to have speeches of a certain length IN ORDER TO AVOID RUDE INTERRUPTIONS BY FAST-TALKING OBFUSCATORS OF THE ISSUE. ALL TALK SHOWS THRIVE ON THE LATTER CONFUSORS, BECLOUDORS WHOSE SOUND-BYTE TALK GOES FAST INTO BICKER-BICKER. Those who “moderate” such gibble-gabble must somehow think that that mess of talk without respectful listening is drama demanded by the medium of TV. Case in point: The Mclaughlin Group, worst offenders. They allow a reporter to string together only two or three sentences before the over-talking begins. The deliberative mind does not benefit. We are given “conversation”, which goes a very short while before the subject changes.
I propose this framework:
1. A moderator who is a professor in argumentation and a “successful” coach of a university debate team in national, regional and local, interscholastic events. The National Communication Association will provide the roster of potential moderators who work within the special entity of university debate programs. It would be an honor conferred on those academics.
2. Each party, Democrat and Republican, will work with the chosen debate moderator to frame propositions for each of the issues to be debated, health care, economy, Iraq War, global warming, energy, education, immigration, infrastructure, judicial appointments, social values such as abortion and gay marriage, separation of church and state, NAFTA, United Nations issues, and so on. Such an intense, directed focus on our national problems is required to solve them with the Presidential powers to propose legislation and to eliminate irrelevant and frivolous matters.
3. The issues for each debate will be limited, and the propositions will be announced in advance.
4. The nominees’ arguments for or against each proposition will be given within a time limit to be predetermined. Perhaps four or five minutes for each speech.
5. The nominees will declare their stance, for or against, the proposition. It may happen that both will speak for, or both against the stated proposition where the proposition is supported or not supported, but the differences will be in the details of analysis, evidence, reasoning, history, plan of attack.
6. Each nominee will give three speeches on one issue, a constructive, a rebuttal, and a reconstructive. If one nominee declares support for the proposition and the other declares against it, then the debate proceeds thus:
I.
a. Constructive: for. Five minutes.
b. Constructive: alternative constructive. Five minutes.
(One minute break. Or commercial break.)
II.
a. Rebuttal.Three minutes.
b. Rebuttal. Three minutes.
(One minute break. Or commercial break.)
III.
a. Reconstructive. Three or four minutes.
b. Reconstructive. Three or four minutes
END OF DEBATE
(24 -26 minutes per proposition)
7. Moderator has the gavel to rap at the end of the alotted time. He or she presents the nominees, explains the process, states the proposition, clarifies terms, and generally oversees the debate.
8. All audience reactions should be prohibited.
9. Nominees should stand for all presentations.
That is a rigorous course for the nominees to run. Shouldn’t they have the stamina? Good ptreparation for their press conferences in their incumbency. We should be able to determine some of their style of leadership.
____________________________
Ron Lubensky wrote this comment. I am putting it here in case you may have missed it.
I agree with your starting point. Having the media run the actual debate benefits the media more than the public. Professional moderation would provide rigour.
However, the debate protocol defends a binary proposition: defend option A or B, true or false, yes or no. Of course, we need to be able to distinguish between the candidates and their positions. Rather than push each towards extreme positions, I’d prefer a format that permits the expression of broader, more centrist, overlapping positions, but where the detail and subtleties of implementation for example may differentiate them. I’m less interested in rebuttal, as it is too often scripted and done poorly with misinformation and distortion. I’d rather see clear expressions of commitments and understanding of the policy landscape by the candidates. Leave it to the viewers to judge the merits of the proposals and the competence of the candidates. Finally, and most importantly, the debate format you promote still doesn’t bring people into the process, which I think is what is really required. The questions addressed by candidates should be the result of a deliberative process that harvests them from a microcosm of the population. And the process needs to be able to surprise the candidates–after all, we are looking to see how they react unscripted on their feet under the glare of the camera.
My response:
Let me clarify. When I say “a”, I meant to indicate that is one of the nominees and “b” is the other nominee, not a proposition.
In the short time between the constructive round and the rebuttal round–yes, “rebuttal” as a hard job of any respectable debater– , nothing can be “scripted” except in the sense that the speaker-nominee “a” has generally practiced his or her stump speech so much that you might say, in a way it is “scripted”; it is extemporized from a long campaign of practice. Same for the speaker-nominee “b”. We have just had the exhibition season.Now it’s on to the finals.
What will be good for us is that we will have a direct clash between opposing parties for the first time, focusing on a subject matter restricted to just a few crucial issues in each debate.
No more “my friends” conversation. This is high level discussion and debate at the highest level, two specialized terms in the nomenclature of the debate specialists. Not for amateurs or the “minor” league.
The audience participation you desire should be done with demographically selected, as pollsters do the job, focus-groups after the debates at a remove from the debate hall, same building or across the continent in the regions blue or red. These debates should be a media event, primarily. Actually it should be the people who bring themselves into the process in discussion groups in libraries or some such meeting hall throughout the nation. Or, what’s better, livingrooms filled with neighbors or friends or relatives gathered to watch and discuss each event. What a “hotbed” of democracy that would be!
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I agree with your starting point. Having the media run the actual debate benefits the media more than the public. Professional moderation would provide rigour.
However, the debate protocol defends a binary proposition: defend option A or B, true or false, yes or no. Of course, we need to be able to distinguish between the candidates and their positions. Rather than push each towards extreme positions, I’d prefer a format that permits the expression of broader, more centrist, overlapping positions, but where the detail and subtleties of implementation for example may differentiate them. I’m less interested in rebuttal, as it is too often scripted and done poorly with misinformation and distortion. I’d rather see clear expressions of commitments and understanding of the policy landscape by the candidates. Leave it to the viewers to judge the merits of the proposals and the competence of the candidates. Finally, and most importantly, the debate format you promote still doesn’t bring people into the process, which I think is what is really required. The questions addressed by candidates should be the result of a deliberative process that harvests them from a microcosm of the population. And the process needs to be able to surprise the candidates–after all, we are looking to see how they react unscripted on their feet under the glare of the camera.
Let me clarify. When I say “a”, I meant to indicate that is one of the nominees and “b” is the other nominee, not a proposition.
In the short time between the constructive round and the rebuttal round–yes, “rebuttal” as a hard job of any respectable debater– , nothing can be “scripted” except in the sense that the speaker-nominee “a” has generally practiced his or her stump speech so much that you might say, in a way it is “scripted”; it is extemporized from a long campaign of practice. Same for the speaker-nominee “b”. We have just had the exhibition season.Now it’s on to the finals.
What will be good for us is that we will have a direct clash between opposing parties for the first time, focusing on a subject matter restricted to just a few crucial issues in each debate.
No more “my friends” conversation. This is high level discussion and debate at the highest level, two specialized terms in the nomenclature of the debate specialists. Not for amateurs or the “minor” league.
The audience participation you desire should be done with demographically selected, as pollsters do the job, focus-groups after the debates at a remove from the debate hall, same building or across the continent in the regions blue or red. These debates should be a media event, primarily. Actually it should be the people who bring themselves into the process in discussion groups in libraries or some such meeting hall throughout the nation. Or, what’s better, livingrooms filled with neighbors or friends or relatives gathered to watch and discuss each event. What a “hotbed” of democracy that would be!