Debates useful or just another television block?

As the rest of my fellow lead bloggers did I too sat down to watch the debates on Friday night and after watching them I felt let down and confused. Being that it was a Friday night I elected to subject myself to watching it again via internet (http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/debates/first-presidential-debate.html).
My understanding about the debate was it was suppose to be about foreign policy and if that is so the candidates do not even start to talk about the Middle East until about 36 mins into the debate. Knowing that our country is in economic crisis right now I can see why the moderator would want to touch upon that but they did they really need to dedicate the first half hour to it? One thing I found very interesting in watching the debates is that I don’t think the candidates really ever answer the question purposed to them. Even the moderator, Jim Lehrer, seemed to be confused during the economic talk as to how exactly Obama and McCain's answers related to the questions he proposed. According to Kaid “debates may not alter the voting preferences of the vast majority…studies have found that among the undecided, conflicted, or weakly committed debates do help these viewers form their voting preference or even change candidate selection” (Kaid 211). While I think debates are very important, the idea that these debates are helping to secure votes for candidates among undecided voters makes me a little uneasy because I feel that the candidates don’t always answer the questions as so much put on a show to dance around the topic by spewing out facts and numbers that blind the view of the fact that they haven’t really said flat out if I am president I will do this_____. Personally I have never really been a fan of mixing television with politics. I feel that we the viewer are subconsciously influenced by candidates about their appearances or what is going on around them which takes away from what they are actually saying. An example of how watching a debate versus listening to it on the radio can best be seen in the outcome of the Kennedy Nixon debates. The viewers who watched the debates felt that Kennedy won the debate while people who listened to it over the radio felt that Nixon won. It has been suggested that people who watched the debates took into account the appearances of the candidates when declaring the winner. I feel that television in a sense has desensitized us to politics. As Hart states “Coat and tie, heels and hose, are no longer needed when watching the president’s inaugural address” (Hart 92) It seems old fashioned yes, but the idea of dressing up and attending the inaugural address has been lost over the years because what’s the point we know it will be on television and we don’t even need to get our of our p.j’s. I suppose the questions I am trying to get to is, are presidential debates really helping to get their ideas and plans for the future out there? And when watching the debates, are we really impartial to the appearance of the candidates if we are voters on the fence?