Kevin Drum is thinking about debate formats:
Now, there’s nothing wrong with a few beachballs. Giving every candidate a couple of minutes to simply explain their healthcare plan — or whatever — without interruption is fine. But then what? Do we really want several months of “debates” in which candidates do nothing but rattle off bits and pieces of their stump speeches endlessly?
The problem here is that he’s asking the wrong question. There are far too many words in that last sentence, which really ought to be shortened to:
Do we really want several months of “debates?”
The answer is “no.” Have a nice day.
Let me be perfectly clear:
I do not want several months of “debates” in which the candidates rattle off bits and pieces of their stump speeches.
I do not want several months of “debates” in which the candidates answer “gotcha” questions from tv journalists.
I do not want several months of “debates” in which the candidates answer pre-screened questions from “ordinary citizens” who have been carefully chosen to correspond to a particular view of what “ordinary citizens” look and act like.
I do not want several months of “debates” in which the candidates answer riddles posed to them by eleven-headed mythical monsters, with death as the penalty for a wrong answer.
I do not want several months of debates in which the candidates set their hair on fire and compete to see who can explain their universal health care plan before their eyeballs melt.
I could go on (and please, feel free to add more undesirable debate formats in the comments), but you get the idea. I do not want to see several months of “debates,” period. End of sentence, end of subject, let’s talk about something else.
We’ve already had several months of this campaign, and we haven’t had a single goddamn primary yet, and won’t for another couple of months. I am sick to death of hearing about the campaign. Enough.
The US is fighting two simultaneous wars, badly, and crazy people are agitating to start a third. Talk about that.
A cyclone just slammed into the southern part of Asia, killing or displacing thousands. Talk about that.
A scientist somewhere has just made a remarkable discovery. I’m not sure what it is, but I’m sure there is one. Talk about that.
Hell, I’m sure that a pretty blond woman has gone missing somewhere. At this point, I’m so sick of horse-race stories about politics, that I’d be happy to get saturation coverage of a damsel in distress. Talk about that, please.
But for the love of God, stop with the “debates.”