What are your thoughts about debates?  I personally believe they are a good thing.  A way to discuss a particular political platform, or a way to remind us that some things have already been accomplished even though we are told daily there has been no progress.  As voters, we need to know all that we can about who we are voting for.  What is their platform?  What are the ways they are going to accomplish their goals? 

Yes, there must be rules in which the debates are conducted.  We can no longer afford, as voters, to listen to bullying, lying, or constant interruption of debaters.  It’s not only a huge waste of time for us to listen for one or two hours over a single night and find out that we have found out very little concerning the questions that were posed.  It is also a waste of time for the moderators to spend hours researching meaningful questions and end up with no answers.  It is also a waste of time to the stations carrying the debates.  They lose the time and advertising dollars they would normally take in, and the ability to find out for themselves what the debates really meant.  Unless, of course, they are lucky enough to obtain interviews with the participants.

Most of the news stations will, however, comment on the debates for at least one hour after they conclude.  This is another big waste of our time as voters.  Personally, I don’t want the news commentators’ opinions as to what happened.  I want the facts for the statements that were spoken and the times that were taken by each participant during their clocked time on the stage.  This should be broken down by each question and not given as allowed time parameters but, as actual time taken.  And which segments were overlapped by unrelated babbling for each participant.

Both of these factors, facts and time, will give a much better picture of what was happening.  The questions, themselves, should be a part of the timelines.  Of course, even these requests, as important as they are, should not be necessary.  We have no structured political debates in this country.  We are so worried about making someone unhappy, or mad, that we tend to let them babble on.  And most of the babble concerns information that wasn’t requested.  Some may say, “let them talk” because they want to find out about the additional information that is being spilled.  But if it’s not answering the question, it doesn’t belong in the debate.

So, what I’ve been talking about here are ways to clean up a dirty mess.  Or providing the understanding of the mess presented.  Yet if we had appropriate discussions, some of these steps would not be required.  There should never be a mess to clean up.  We should conduct our debates in a fashion that mirrors a high school or college debate.  Our debaters should want this and be willing to participate in these more structured events.

This is actually what we should request of all our congresspeople when they give interviews or stop to talk on our congressional floors.  Stick to the question.  Don’t answer a question with another.  Don’t abandon the path by giving information on something that doesn’t pertain.  If you don’t have an answer, then say so.  Your constituents need the information that is being asked.  Provide that alternate information when giving a speech or by some other way.

So, what can be done to allow a debate to be informative and complete?  There are many things to do.  The first one, I feel, is most important in today’s political world is fact checking.  There should be enough of these fact checkers to provide the truth we need within one hour of the debate.  It might take some additional time, however, once the facts roll in, the stations that provided the debate for us to watch must review the factual information concerning each question and answer and provide it to us immediately.  This should be required.  It should be the minimum required if a debate is provided to us.

Next, there should be the ability to turn off a mic of a debater whenever they are babbling instead of providing real information.  This process of “muddying the waters”, is counterproductive, and is a purposeful action to confuse us as voters.  Their mics should be cut off when their time is up.  The debater must be able to respond to a question or provide a rebuttal in the given time limit.  A good debater will start with the most pertinent information first then add to it as time permits.  Most debaters have additional information and so will use their time well.

There is a last change that should be made in our debates.  There should not be any roaming of the debate stage.  Unless I missed something, you will note that in the past republican debates, no one was wandering about in front of or behind other debaters.  There is no reason to allow this and only places debaters under additional pressure, which is what the wandering debater wants.  This is foul play.  It should be called out of bounds immediately.  This must be done and done meaningfully.

So, do debates work?  Of course.  Should we have debates?  Of course.  Should we have debates without the changes mentioned above?  Never.  If conducted properly, debates will provide a plethora of good information that the voter can use to determine the candidates they will vote for.  Without them, it only becomes chaos and provides no real information to the voter.  Without them, it is a total waste of time to the voter, and of income to those broadcasting it.