We saw the Presidential debate, or as much as we could stand of it, and the verdicts are all in: Dumpster fire, s***show. It was an international embarrassment for our country, just another one on the pile, and Donald Trump is getting the blame. If Joe Biden made any mistakes, we missed them, because Mr. Trump was so busy talking over him. But the two participants aside, what do we expect of these things?
For days leading up to this event, it was billed as a head-to-head battle. There was concern about whether Joe Biden could go the distance. We waited to see which side could score points or draw the first blood. The promos made the debate sound almost like a heavyweight fight. I’m surprised we didn’t have Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant analyzing it.
Chris Wallace was criticized for being unable to control the debate. It’s not as if he doesn’t have an authoritarian voice, as his father did. But he couldn’t shout the President down. What he needed was the ability to kill Mr. Trump’s mic during interruptions, but he didn’t have it. Maybe that will be the rule for subsequent match-ups.
Tuesday night was just a reminder, though, that entirely too much weight isplaced on these debates. Personally, I think the Town Hall format is much more effective in showing us who the candidates really are. It’s one thing for candidates to dodge questions from a moderator or a panel of journalists, but dodging them from a regular citizen is quite another. We learn something about how a candidate interacts with what we might call “real” people.
At this point, the vast majority of us don’t even need debates. We’ve had a long time to see these two guys in action. They both have track records, and we have probably made up our minds. Even if we have just awakened from a long sleep, there are websites and maybe someone on a screen or speaker, on a newspaper editorial page, or in our life whose opinion we respect, to help us decide.
As I said earlier, though, my other concern is that so many of us are so anxious to have our ballots counted in this contest that we will rush to mail or deposit them or do early voting, and the state propositions, state and local candidates, and local measures won’t get the attention they deserve this year.
On the other hand, if we have all this extra time at home now, thanks to COVID, we can put it to good use.
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