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topicnews · August 29, 2024

Are the formats of presidential debates really useful for voters?

Are the formats of presidential debates really useful for voters?

Jeff Gill
| Guest columnist

The presidential debates have perhaps never been as important in US politics as they are this year.

A poor performance in the debate has arguably knocked incumbent Joe Biden out of the running for the November 5 general election (early voting in Ohio begins October 8), so much attention will be focused on how Donald Trump and Kamala Harris compare to each other in the debates they end up having.

Historically, debates haven’t really done much. It’s often claimed that the first televised debate, Richard Nixon versus John F. Kennedy in 1960, had an impact on the election outcome. The usual claim is that those who listened to it on the radio thought Nixon won, but those who turned on the TV thought Kennedy won. (Spoiler alert: Kennedy won.)

Gerald Ford tripped up Jimmy Carter for describing Poland’s status behind the Iron Curtain, reinforcing an already existing downward trend in his poll numbers; Ronald Reagan came up with a good line about his opponent’s relative youth and immaturity, so good that even Walter Mondale laughed out loud. Did either of these phrases really win the election?

Sometimes people are surprised to hear that presidential debates have only been going on since 1960. “What about the Lincoln-Douglas debates?” Um, well, that was in 1858, but that was the Senate race in Illinois, and Douglas won. But that set the stage for the 1860 presidential election. (Spoiler alert: Lincoln won that time.)

There is a famous management saying by Edward Deming: “Every system is perfectly designed to produce the results it produces.” I think of this when I look at the format of today’s presidential debates compared to the one that gave us Abraham Lincoln as president.

Lincoln and Stephen Douglas held seven debates in various communities throughout Illinois during the summer and fall of 1858. They ran from 2 p.m. to about 5 p.m. The two took turns starting, and the first speaker spoke (are you sitting?) for an hour, the second candidate had 90 minutes to respond, then the opening speaker had half an hour to respond.

Shorthand and telegraphy were technologies that were just becoming widespread, and they made the debates a national phenomenon. Large portions of the debate speeches were reprinted throughout the United States.

But I’m just thinking of the huge difference between asking someone to present their program in an hour without a break, knowing that your opponent has an hour and a half to respond to your proposals, and then thinking as you speak about how to use your thirty-minute response, versus “You have thirty seconds to respond.”

If every system is perfectly designed to produce the desired results, what is the point of a program with short sound bites and fragmented answers? Does a short attention span format tend to result in a more unfocused and wandering candidate? Or does it simply encourage that kind of mindset…

(Deming also said, “A bad system will beat a good man every time.” Spoiler?)

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller and preacher from central Ohio. He has participated in debates before and isn’t sure our presidential debate format deserves the designation. Discuss this question with him at [email protected] or follow @Knapsack77 on threads.

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