Do Debates Really Tell Us About Where the Candidates Stand?

According to Kaid, “Perhaps the most often heard refrain regarding presidential debates is the charge that these staged for TV encounters between our major aspirants for the presidency are anything but true debates” (Kaid 219). This quote is somewhat disturbing because of the great amount of public reliance on the debates to inform them of the candidates’ stances on the issues. The debate last Friday night was supposed to have focused on foreign policy, yet conversation came to talk of the economy and the increasingly scrutinized economic bailout plan that. It seemed as though both Obama and McCain were not willing to take a strong stance on the plan either way, or even their plans for helping make the economy better as president. See http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/27/debate.analysis/index.html for more information. There was a lot of talk from both candidates, but not enough said. Since they did not make a real stance either way, on the subject of the economy, this was not a true debate. Also, because this debate was supposed to focus on foreign policy and not the economy, there really wasn’t enough time to devote to this issue and to talk about foreign affairs in such a short amount of time. Foreign affairs issues include the war in Iraq, terrorism, the situation between Russia and Georgia and the United States’ role in it all, etc. These subjects can not be treated lightly with sound bites instead of good, solid answers and plans from the candidates; yet with the amount of time they had, there really wasn’t much time to go in-depth. If it was Jim Lehrer’s choice to include questions about the economy in this debate, then it wasn’t a fair choice to either the candidates or the American people. The issue should have waited until the domestic policy debate. If McCain and Obama wanted to just talk about their stance on the bailout plan, they could have done that separately outside of the debates themselves.
“Common criticisms have included the inability of candidates to develop sustained and in depth argument due to the abbreviated response times, as well as multiple and often unrelated topics raised in a single debate” (Kaid 219). Jim Lehrer, the moderator of the debates, told each of the candidates multiple times that they only had two minutes to respond to his question, then rebuke what the other candidate had proposed. Half of the time, the candidates were talking over each other, making it hard for the American public to hear or understand what the other was saying. Although they do have limited response time, arguing in this fashion is not helpful to anyone. This is hardly enough time to explain foreign policy, a complicated situation indeed. According to Bruce Miroff in the Waterman book, “Television provides the view most amenable to spectacle; by favoring the visual and the dramatic, it promotes stories with simple plot lines over complex analyses of causes and consequences” (Waterman 122). Simple was all we were able to get. Neither of the candidates really could really go in-depth about their view of the United States’ role in the world and exactly how they would change it. Although he addressed the issue that relations between the United States and foreign countries were strained, Obama did not exactly say how he would change that; all he said was that he had a plan. As a concerned voter, I want to know what that plan is, but I will never be able to find out through the debate because it does not allot enough time for Obama to detail a plan for a very complex situation.
What do you think? Some issues you might think about include: Are the televised debates the best way to judge a candidate for the presidency? Do they provide enough information about where each candidate stands? Do you think that the format should change?