Debate debacle

Wednesday night’s Republican Presidential debate reminded me of my days back at Summit Point Elementary School when kids egged on recess fights. Hey, fights were exciting and I guess we thought they wouldn’t happen without the mob’s encouragement.

No doubt the CNBC moderators thought they were being tough and provocative, but they misconstrued an important debate among leading candidates for President of the United States for one of their own gabfest panels.

As Fox News Media Analyst Howard Kurtz said, “Many of the moderators’ questions seemed to me to be snide, hostile, condescending, borderline insulting.” Kurtz added that he’s all for tough questions, “but a lot of these questions were not drilling down on facts, or record, or policy.”

That was evident at the outset when John Harwood in his first question suggested Donald Trump was running a “comic book version of a presidential campaign.” Unfortunately that set the tone for the night, which was dominated by “gotcha” questions, crosstalk and constant squabbling over airtime.

Chris Christie, who feels comfortable in a brawl, called out Harwood.  “Even in New Jersey what you are doing is rude.”

You know there’s a problem when Ted Cruz gets the biggest applause of the night with his succinct and accurate criticism of CNBC and the media. “This is not a cage match,” Cruz said.  “How about talking about some substantive issues?”

One of the most discussed moments of the debate—excluding the media bashing—was when Marco Rubio cleanly deflected Jeb Bush’s attack on him for missing Senate votes due to the campaign. This was supposed to be a debate about the economy and that was a minor issue, at best.

Thursday on “Morning Joe,” Christie said something’s gone wrong.  “It’s become a TV show rather than a thoughtful process… the whole process has gotten out of control.”

Americans did not tune in the way they had for the previous two GOP debates.  Fourteen million people watched Wednesday night, a little over half the audience of the previous two debates.  People may already be tiring of them, or they simply turned the channel when the debate ran off the rails.

We want our candidates to have spirited debates, but I don’t think we want to see them drawn into trumped up grudge matches. They bring out the worst, not only in the candidates themselves, but also in the questioners.

There can be a nexus of tough questioning and vigorous debate, but we did not see that Wednesday night.





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