Gaffes in political debates are no longer local, can go viral when picked up by national outlets. TPM Election Central's mention of a NM House debate this morning is an example. Eric Kleefeld observes:
Wow, talk about taking right-wing attacks against Dems on Iraq to the next level. At a debate in New Mexico for the open GOP-held Second District late last week, Republican nominee Ed Tinsley accused his Dem opponent Harry Teague of wanting to cut the throats of American troops in Iraq.
Gaffes have legs when they fit with some external narrative (see earlier post analyzing gaffes). This is a gaffe for Mr. Kleefeld , I assume, because the "right wing" is mean spirited, willing to stoop ever so low.
Listening to the video I struck that in the debate context the "mistake" is less obvious than "reported," more in keeping with the heat of elections and debates. I don't expect this debate excerpt will gain traction, yet it highlights that in a world without gatekeepers, YouTube, and local media sponsors of debates (who make video available), most all political debates become fair game: Any debate, Anywhere, Anytime.
The Commission on Presidential Debates is in a world of hurt, the 24/7s and technology have bypassed them and it appears McCain and Obama also are interested in holding debates outside of the rigid CPD's fall foursome (or at least adding other forums). The Commission should be nervous, very nervous.
Candidates Apply Pressure:
Floating a trial balloon via McCain's lead media creator Mark McKinnonlast week, the GOP presumptive suggested that he and Obama "agree to campaign together in some states, attending joint town hall meetings and debating each other without a moderator."
McKinnon rather directly suggested:
The town hall meeting is John's best format. He's a natural campaigner up close with the public. That would test Obama's claims that he wants a clean fight on the issues."
Yesterday, according to Alaska Report, Barack Obama seems interested
it would be a "great idea" to hold joint town hall-style campaign events with John McCain. Obviously, we would have to think through the logistics on that, but ... if I have the opportunity to debate substantive issues before the voters with John McCain, that's something that I am going to welcome."
The Commission on Presidential Debate ability to control presidential debates is about to end. Likely there will be four CPD debate in the fall but there may a lot more debates as well.
The latest entry is set for Sept. 18 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, featuring Google and YouTube technology to generate questions for the candidates.
The three remaining candidates have been contacted about participating and have not signed on (waiting for the Democratic nomination), but notably no one had rejected the idea in deference to the CPD.
And why shouldn't the candidates agree. Exposure is the name of the game and there are easy alternates to the major networks and inflexible CDP structure. Why not spread the risk and recovery time from three over-hyped CPD productions? Surely the 24/7 networks would be willing, having scored all time ratings during the primary period.
New Orleans may just be the tip of the iceberg. The CPD, which scooped the League of Women Voters to take control for the two major parties, may be endangered themselves.
My prejudice is that the CNN-YouTube debates were poorly orchestrated affairs, and have said so on record (Minnesota Public Radio) . This project is a more systematic examination of the questions selected by CNN. After viewing the questions preferred by Anderson Cooper and others I expected to find the following:
Entertainment bias in selection
Gotcha Questions
Themes aimed at Party (GOP) hypocrisy
Issues selection tilted toward conflict/drama rather than consequence
When I examined the individual questions my inquiry took an unexpected turn. Certainly, many of the questions could be viewed through the above lens, but the variety of questions was much richer than their generalized duplicity. Damning the questions as double-dealing alone fails to answer how the questions worked. What were their specific sins?
techPresident has just pointed out that YouTube has invited feedback following the CNN debacle GOP debate. They interpret that call as YouTube "responding to the CNN blowback." OK, but why? CNN made the choice from thousands of questions, selected the rotations, and delighted in the "you're a hypocrite" framing. The offending party is not YouTube.
The jury is in and it is nearly unanimous: CNN's selection process produced entertainment, not light. Even the Save-the-Debate-Coalition condemned the process. The voice was less that of voters and more of CNN's "crack political team." Save-the-Debate writes:
Unfortunately, CNN's flawed editorial process in choosing the questions asked of the candidates marred an otherwise lively debate and betrayed the trust of the Republican candidates and the YouTube user community.
Not to mention voters who are left to assess crazy questions eliciting equally undignified answers.
Writing after the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960, historian Henry Steele Commager lamented that televised debates "submit the greatest elective office in the world to the chances of arbitrary and miscellaneous questions put forward not to elicit information or to illuminate problems, but to provide sensations." Commager, of course, was bemoaning the tendencies of reporter panelists to use a television debate not to enlighten voters on important topics but to produce headlines or make journalistic capital. Yesterday's Republican You Tube Debate certainly did little to demonstrate that questions from "real people" are any less vulnerable to those urges. With an array of potentially provocative questions at their disposal, journalists apparently gain new license for putting candidates on the spot and for testing who's glib under fire.
Unless Anderson Cooper or one of the candidates wedges them into the debate as a segue or follow up, we probably will not hear questions about the breaking news of questionable travel expenses using tax money to help Rudy conduct adulterous visits, news that broke just hours ago at Politico.
CNN can discuss little else in the hour leading up to the debate and their reporters say that's the main buzz they are discussing.
But the questions were submitted by citizens who knew none of this. In fact, most of the questions will also pre-date the tiff between Rudy and Romney about Romney's crime record as Massachusetts governor as well as questions about Romney's having ruled out inclusion of Muslims in his cabinet.
These are the kinds of questions journalist questioners would love to raise. But they also do not make for very good debate. What facts and arguments could be brought, really?
My guess is that tonight's debate will stick to broader themes of experience and policy, the kinds of questions citizens tend to favor. The format has a certain rigidity that does not lend itself to last minute improvisation.
If not, the CNN crew must be hard at work picking out some last minute YouTube questions that would serve as good springboards to the questions the media really wants answered.
To get ready for tonight's GOP CNN/YouTube presidential primary debate (8pm EST on CNN and streamed at CNN.com) I read the blogs and the papers so you wouldn't have to. If you want to check my work or read more, I bookmarked everything for you at del.icio.us.
To find the best of the web on tonight's debate just go to del.icio.us and insert the following (no quote marks, no commas) into the search box there: GOP youtube debatescoop. To narrow the search to articles focused on the questions add the word questions. To narrow to pieces previewing and predicting add the word preview.
After the debate you can do the same search but add winners/losers to find items discussing how the debate turned out.
But for now, you can simply click on "read more" to find my synthesis of the news and my own take aways from it. . . .
Tonight's GOP YouTube debate provides an exciting opportunity for members of the American public to ask the candidates questions to which they really want answers. Members of the public will not only have the opportunity to write questions for candidates, but they will also be able to ask their questions of the candidates in their own way via YouTube videos. This system creates a valuable opportunity to study the structure and delivery of the debate's questions and the impact those questions have on the debate itself.
The kinds of questions asked in presidential debates, as well as how those questions are asked, bear significant implications for how candidates answer the questions and how the voting public perceives the answers to those questions. Ben-Porath, in his piece, "Framing the Candidates" (Paper presented at the annual Conference of the International Communication Association, 2005), identifies three important characteristics of questions that can affect the candidate's response and how the voting public perceives that response.
The main thing I noticed about this debate was the fact that it was introduced and moderated by a gorgeous woman, Maria Bartiromo. Her role in the debate really grabbed my attention, but for a different reason than the producers probably intended...
Not a lot of time to write, but the CNN/YouTube debate for the GOP candidates has been rescheduled for November 28. According to The Trail, all but Romney have already agreed to participate. Tommy Thompson dropped out today, but should be replaced by Fred.
To find the many write ups and other items of interest on the four debates last week, just go to del.icio.us. In the search box, enter debatescoop and:
GLBT -- for the Human Rights Campaign Debate on LOGO.
AFL-CIO -- for the AFL-CIO forum on MSNBC.
YearlyKos -- for the YearlyKos Democratic forum.
ABCIowa -- for the GOP debate from DesMoines.
Add the following for more fine tuned searches:
winners/losers -- for articles about the outcome.
videoclips -- for links to video highlights.
liveblog -- for links to liveblogs.
roundup -- for blog posts with lots of links.
You can, of course, combine the terms, separated by spaces, not commas, in the del.icio.us searchbox.
Many a question that is submitted to the YouTube debates is silly, and some that make it onto the debate program itself are criticized from a number of perspectives.
Application of debate skills to the debate about the September 17 CNN/YouTube Debate reveals that the Giuliani and Romney campaigns are making the worst possible argument for dodging the debate.
[editor's note, by Ross Smith]David Thomas's contribution below contains a rich set of questions for people interested in pursuing the study of what makes a good debate question. Our exercise earlier this week was meant to raise the question of questions and to serve as a demonstration project for educators. If more people pick up where we left off and take up David Thomas's challenges, numerous fruitful projects will be undertaken.
This is my second contribution.
Here I comment on the research project in which Youtube Debate questions are rank ordered by a set of criteria.
