Debate, Don't Advertise

This past Thursday, thousands of students across the nation played drinking games to the first presidential debate. For those who took a shot whenever one of the candidates mentioned words such as “inconsistent,” “summit” or “weapons of mass destruction,” it must have been quite a night—last week’s debate was largely repetitive, superficial and content-free.

The absurdly specific guidelines the parties hashed out before the event have already been widely reported—and ridiculed—even in the generally pliant mainstream American media. Instead of a meaningful discourse, Americans heard prepared answers to questions on pre-approved issues in a pre-negotiated format. Friday’s program was not a debate by traditional standards: It resembled a contest to see who could go ninety minutes without slipping-up more than it did an effort to delve into the complicated substance of pressing issues like the bubbling quagmire of Iraq, nuclear proliferation and the crumbling of democracy in Russia.

Indeed, those voters that could keep their eyes open for the full 90 minutes learned remarkably little about either candidate’s policies. Why is President George Bush so convinced that China would leave the bargaining table and pout if the United States facilitated bilateral talks between the Koreas? Does John Kerry have a real exit strategy for Iraq, or is he just relying on the questionable notion that the rest of the world will swoop in from the wings to aid a Kerry administration stuck with President Bush’s mess? The American people missed out on a vital layer of complexity Thursday night. And the sad part is that the debate went the way it was supposed to go.

The root of the problem lies in the way the debates are organized. After the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD)—an “independent” group in fact controlled by the two major parties—took control of administering televised presidential debates from the League of Women Voters in 1988, the Democrats and the Republicans have been able to jointly dictate the terms on which their candidates will appear. The results have been all-too obvious—candidates avoid dangerous issues and spontaneous or interactive formats.

We do not expect control of presidential debates to be wrested from the parties any time soon. But we whole heartedly endorse groups such as Citizens’ Debate Commission and Open Debate, which are trying to put a truly independent and non-partisan body back in charge—to make presidential debates less like extended political advertisements and more like Lincoln-Douglass. For the sake of meaningful democracy, we hope they succeed in removing the CPD as sponsor of the presidential debates.

Perhaps the most disappointing and dangerous aspect of the status quo is that voters might actually form their opinions about the candidates from the substance-less drivel Americans got a taste of Thursday. Until the presidential debates improve significantly, all we can hope is that voters manage to inform themselves despite a dearth of valuable political discourse.