Talk Elections

There are usually three debates between the two candidates that run for office every four years prior to election night which is held in November.  The incumbent, trying to defend their 1st term in office, has to keep his base strong and recruit new voters on his ticket.

What do you guys think about debates ending in future election cycles?  We obviously have several campaign rallies and townhall meetings that occur throughout the year, especially in the spring and summer. Would that be enough information from the candidates on how they stand on issues?

What information is to be had from campaign rallies? Those kind of events are preaching to the choir with talking points and softball Q&A.

If the debates are done away with, it will only be so they can be replaced by an Apprentice-style reality show, the revenue from which will help keep our government running until the next debt ceiling increase.

At a point where technology is at our fingertips, people are able to access information and facts of the candidates.  Social media is already effecting the way we vote, what is read, and how it's accessed.  The problem with that, some people don't have the time to do research or simply don't care about politics in general.

If more than 60% of people voting already made up there mind, the purpose of debates themselves are moot.  I think it's a waste of time for alot of people.

What makes it a waste of time is the format. There's little real dialogue. Instead you get a bunch of prepared answers to predictable questions. A looser format with time for dialogue about the issues and moderators who were willing to go into details and give the politicians the time they need to answer properly, would actually be interesting

Case in point = Last election Sarah Palin besically rehearsed her way through the "debate" with Biden, while having very little real knowledge of the issues. That ought not to be possible, but it is with this stale format.

Debates need to become harder hitting, more like the 1992 ones.  People are tired of the current 1 minute soundbite speech tennis match that current debates are.

I'd love to see a debate with a panel of moderators, liberal and conservative who toss attacking questions to the candidate they obviously don't support.  That would probably get us the best answers.

Well, since Romney is almost like a robot personality wise, then he shouldn't have a problem answering the questions to the best of his ability. 

Debates need more Johnson/Stein. Having more than two people presenting viewpoints would liven it up a tad.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/2/third-parties-work-for-their-candidates-inclusion-/

I disagree that debates should be done away with in future election cycles, if anything the debate format should be changed so that the candidates' positions are challenged by the moderator(s) and they can engage in a genuine dialogue between the candidates rather than spewing rehearsed talking-points that Americans have been saturated with in the past.

I can understand how the current format can appear stilted and useless precisely because politics has become such a sport for the media that it is covered ad nauseum for the duration of the election cycle. Debates become little more than opposing campaign rallies where each side tries to battle the other out by name-calling, using "zingers", and continuing to spew overused talking points. At the end of the day, barring any major gaffes, each side claims victory and the "victor" - if any such can truly exist - is the side who has the most successful spin operation.

Instead, debates should be a forum where the moderator (or preferably a group of panelists) can try to steer the debate along by offering guidelines in terms of topic but not just asking predictable questions which inevitably conjure stilted and rehearsed minute-long responses. The big problem in politics today is that politicians - on both sides - aren't addressing the specifics of issues and instead talk in platitudes. In order to foster a genuine civic discourse, debates should be more of a conversation and perhaps even a roundtable discussion where a thorough vetting of each candidate and the issues he or she brings to the table occurs.

Just my two cents...

I agree with the others who have said that debates should be changed, not scrapped. If I were in charge of the debates, I would:

1) Allow in any candidate on the ballot in states worth 270 electoral votes (i.e. any candidate who could theoretically win). This allows third-party viewpoints without having to let in Jimmy McMillan and David Duke. This year that would mean Stein and Johnson, but not Anderson, Goode, or any others.

2) The topic of the debates (i.e. foreign policy, domestic policy, etc) is not announced before hand. That way it's a little bit harder for candidates to just rehearse talking points and then spit them out on camera.

4) After each question, the moderator should challenge the candidate's answer and offer counterpoints. The candidate can then offer a response to the moderator. The idea being that each candidate's answers don't just go unchallenged. The moderator's counter to the candidates should be forceful and serious, no softballs.

5) In one debate, the candidates should be banned from mentioning the names of or in any way referencing any other candidate in their answers. The idea being to make candidates explain their own positions, not just attack their opponents positions.

6) Each candidate's answer to each question should be a minimum of three minutes long,  in order to make the candidates really explain in detail their positions, not just give talking points.

7) There should be four presidential debates, not three, in order to accommodate the third party candidates and minimum time requirements.

8) Some questions should be more abstract, not just common issue questions. I'm thinking along the lines of "What qualities do you think are most important for a leader of our country to have?" or "How would you define whether a law is 'fair' or 'unfair'?" Things to get at the candidate's general philosophy of government, not just a list of their stances on certain issues.

That's just a few things I would propose. Not that it matters at all what I think about this :p