Poor debate format limited depth
The results are in and people are claiming Joe Biden held his own and Sarah Palin didn’t disappoint. I must agree, even though I’ll have to give Biden the nod as the overall debate winner, Governor Palin came close.
However, don’t take that as an endorsement of the potential Vice President, as Palin benefited from the poor debate format. The moderator moved the candidates quickly from subject to subject almost as if attempting to cover the entire range of issues in a single debate.
This was wasteful of the American people’s time. Why not focus on the economy, the war, and healthcare. Giving ample time to each subject instead of skipping from question to question. Instead we addressed very little on each issue and even a few that probably don’t deserve to be at the forefront of debate.
Both candidates realized they didn’t have enough time to answer the questions and both were a question behind most of the night. They didn’t go back to answer previous questions in the sense that most candidates do, they just weren’t finished with the previous subjects.
Moderator Gwen Ifill failed at extracting much substance from either candidate. Every time things seemed to be getting going into some real debate and real subjects we would have to stop again and move onto the next subject.
If we have just focused on a few issues, then we might have gotten some depth out of the Vice Presidential candidates. I partially blame the McCain campaign for this as I’m sure they had their strict requirements at opening Governor Palin up to a “real debate.” If this would have happened, she would’ve been tossed to the wayside.
The most depth we say all night was Joe Biden’s analysis of the Middle East. He displayed great poise and intelligence in that setting. I was saddened that neither candidate was able to elaborate on the positions of their tickets any more than just a few brief statements before Ifill interrupted them to move onto another subject.
Why couldn’t we just talk about the real issues, that really mattered to Americans? Glossing over is for the campaign stump speeches, not debates.
Tags: America, candidate, economy, healthcare, joe biden, mccain campaign, president
