Who wins debates?

Another debate is over, and if you haven't found some source to tell you who won, you haven't been looking hard enough. Most media outlets agree that the person who coined the most memorable quote is deserving of praise. I'm not so sure they are. First, I hope we can agree that in the debates all candidates are not given the same amount of time. This inherently causes those with less to almost certainly “lose”. This is unfair in the most basic sense of a supposedly unbiased debate. It is not something within the candidates' control. The monitors set up some for success and others for failure. In a desperate bid equal time, some candidates inevitably interrupt. But they can't win either way, if they are forced to this tactic. If they don't receive the same amount of screen time, we feeling bad for them being marginalized by the moderator, but we forget about them in the after debate media blitz. If they do interrupt then we are incensed by their rudeness. The edge candidates are forced to either suffer a silent humiliation, or a more obvious intrusive one. At this point, you could say that a candidate polling at 5% or 2.5% doesn't deserve the same amount of time, but as long as they were invited, it seems reasonable that the field be treated equally.

Yet this is only a piece of the winning and losing of a debate.

The second factor is the candidates ability to sculpt quotable blurbs. Ones that are easily digested by the TV audience, and also small enough to fit into print or on the web. Some of the candidates on the stage are qualified for this. Others, as we have seen, don't have a clue as to how to create memorable quotes. While some have a background on debate teams at an elite college, others have spent time becoming doctors, governing states, and crafting bi-partisan legislation in the Congress. I'm not sure exactly what qualifies someone to become president. Undoubtedly, you have your opinion and I have mine, and we might disagree. We all have our own ideas of what qualifications we would want. Most of the time there isn't a person that matches everyone of of your criteria but if you look carefully someone will stand out. What I am sure of is that I don't think a skill as debater is near the top. And yet that is what wins these debates.

At the debates its not about what a person says, whether they want to increase public school funding or bomb ISIS, but the person who can make the best quote of it. Its not the person that wants to increase the minimum wage the most effectively, but the one who puts the best spin on their own position. It is not the skill at doing that wins debates but the skill at saying what they will do. And it is not the voice that says the most truth, but only the voice that says what it says the loudest. From the media's perspective, its not about who you want, but the most concise voice that triumphs.

This idea of doing vs saying is a concept that I want to talk about from a different angle in a future article but today its pretty simple. On stage, a candidate can say anything about what they will do, but avoid putting in the details as to how they will do it. They can remain vague but use strong language so that the listener believes they have a clear plan. They embellish with words that don't mean anything. In this way it is hard to tell if they have the best tax plan or are ready to deal with a serious ecological disaster, such as Hurricane Sandy.

Which connects to the second point, because it is also not whether they are vague, but also that people lie. Maybe they don't think they are lying – wouldn't it be great to hear their thoughts rather than their words – but most of them are to different degrees. And what compounds this problem of lying is that this isn't a real debate. A debate is not a two and half hour media frenzy with nine candidates. That is roughly sixteen minutes per person, but you have to factor in moderators asking questions, commercials, and candidates wasting time when trying to avoid a question they don't like. A real debate is a substantive discussion over policy normally made between two or three completing sides. Here there are nine and they are mostly delivering their same stump speech again and again, or a similar answer to every question.

When they do speak to each other about anything, it is mostly personal or even if it is about an issue, it is not substantive; it is without information and plans or thought. Bush's take down of Donald Trump's plan to bar Muslims from entering the United States does touch on an issue of great concern, but it is not substantial. The closest the candidates came to a debate was between Rubio and Cruz, but the limited time allowed for only a more personal series of issue attacks, rather than issue discussions. If anyone had any responsibility for calling out lies, it should be the moderators. I don't know why fellow candidates don't, probably not enough time, but this is where moderators fail the country. The lies that candidates tell, and are allowed to stand unchallenged during these sham debates is of great concern.

But the most serious point of all remains. This is an article about how the media tells you who won the debate. But the media isn't voting for the next president. I hope you are. And in this context it doesn't matter who sounded the best. I think it should rest upon which candidates policy proposals you believe in, whether they receive three minutes or twenty in a debate. It should depend upon whether a candidate is upstanding as a citizen, not how loud they shout their ideas. And it should be about whether they are trustworthy to carry through with their convictions, not how eloquent they are in stating them on a screen. This seems to be the issue that the media misses. Its about how you feel about a candidate that matters. Personally, I believe that means their character and their policy, but whatever it means to you, I think you should make it with the guidance of various sources, but ultimately of your own volition.