The Problem with the Debates

There have been numerous debates during this primary season. You probably have seen the drama unfolding for the Republicans and maybe didn't even know the Democrats had six debates (including tonight's).

One of the most obvious issues with the Republican debates is the number of candidates. In each of the eight debates that have taken place, there have been at least seven candidates up on the stage of the main debate. With so little time for each candidate to speak, what is spoken are basically 30 second soundbites (memorized 25 second speeches). And the candidates that are not frontrunners are forced to promote their websites to find more out about their campaigns because of the lack of airtime. 

The most significant issue with the debates is probably lack of specificity. Up to this point, the topics of the debates have been general and, of course, the topics that mean the most to their respective parties. This is an issue in two crucial ways.

Firstly, discussing only what matters to your party's followers will tend to force candidates to polarize themselves even more. This is certainly not helpful to the candidates or to the non-extreme followers in the party. I think we can all agree that there must be compromise in order to get something done in the government and this increasing polarization will certainly make our problems worse. Once the two party's candidates are chosen in July, both candidates would have been forced to opposite ends of the spectrum that the moderates of US (which has to be majority, I believe) will be forced to choose a side.

The second issue of not having specific topics for each debate? Every single debate is the same. Of course, you'll have a good 10-15 minutes about current events that concern the candidates' campaigns at the beginning. But then candidates are asked essentially the same exact questions in various subjects in every debate. Every 15 minutes or so, the topic changes and the viewers only hear high level soundbites from the candidates without much substance or explanation. I've missed one or two debates during this election cycle and I can't differentiate between the debates because the material was the same in their respective parties. 

If there were one or two topics set for the debates, candidates would be more prepared to answer questions in much more detail and have the sufficient amount of time. Hopefully, there will be less bashing between candidates and more discussion of the issues on hand. The viewers deserve a better format for these primary presidential debates.