Bloodless Coup

that their positions are accessible assumes people will access them. in reality, if it requires a web search, lots of americans will never know a thing about them. newspapers fill some of the gap, but only some, and we all know how reliable and thorough newspapers are these days. ditto, TV news: if anything is going to provide a less nuanced view of candidates' position, or rely on even shorter soundbites than a debate affords, it's TV news.

even for people inclined to look things up, or who read the less patronizing, more thorough, reasonably objective newspapers, they still tend to get snapshots, as articles tend to focus on single issues or small suites of related issues, and websites tend to have an FAQ feel to thim.

this debate was ludicrous, as are most early debates when there are a lot of candidates in the running, because the time afforded to each to answer questions, and the sum total of time each candidate gets (10 minutes each this time around, i believe) is meager at best. but even so i think as the field thins they become more meaningful, as candidates are afforded more time to answer, rebuttal time in some cases, and more face time on TV.

in debates, while the individual answers may be unfortunately short, they are issued in response to a variety of topics, and it's easier to get a complete picture of a candidate's views and how (and whether) they inhere in a larger vision. it also provides an opportunity to conduct a side-by-side comparison of candidates of one party who diverge on small but potentially critical points while agreeing on larger matters of principle.

and finally, although i recognize this reflects more than a little paternalism, for those people who won't look online, and who won't read the papers (or good ones), it drops presidential candidates in the heart of prime time on major networks, and preempts other programming that might vie for viewers' attention. many will just turn away, but some fraction of people who otherwise would know very little about the candidates end up watching, and that can't hurt.

i think a case could be made for creating a non-competitive medium for candidates to articulate their views, by giving them equal time in prime time to speak responsively only to questions and not to each other. but this would wreak far more havoc with network schedules than the current alternative, so i'm not holding my breath.

(plus, it's nice once in a while to make the networks, with their free access to hundreds of billions of dollars worth of spectrum, the greatest subsidy to any corporation this side of the interstate highway system, actually do a little public interest programming, even if it's not 1/100th of what they should be made to do.)

Well I agree with you about the need for more public interest programming.

But are these really providing information that doesn't exist elsewhere to people who wouldn't otherwise search for it? I'd be interested in seeing an analysis of that.

If there actually was a back and forth between candidates that could go on for some time and allow for more differences to become apparent I likely wouldn't find them so pointless. But as long as there isn't a back and forth and follow-up questions, and as long as the answers are as short as they are, and as long as some of the questions are as inane as they are I'm skeptical of their worth at this stage of the process.