After watching last night’s debate, I tried to come up with a word to describe it and remembered one my sister used as a little kid whenever she was frustrated: stoopy. Stoopy means stupid and that’s the best description I have right now.
What was so stupid about the debate last night? Let’s begin with the restrictions, which went a long way towards making it as boring as can be imagined. It’s one thing to tell the audience not to make any overt noises or gestures but I’ll tell you what: if you get a small crowd and admonish them to behave and subject them to harsh lighting, roaming cameras, close proximity to candidates and national exposure, what you’re going to get is an audience of automatons. Which is what we had.
What about the format? The town hall-style was supposed to favor McCain but with an unresponsive audience asking, well, mostly stoopy questions, no one was much served. I’m not familiar with all the restrictions agreed upon by the candidates but if you believe the frustrated and all-too-willing- to-show-it Brokow, the candidates were happy to dispense whatever rules were supposed to apply. I looked up the word “debate” and it’s supposed to be “…a formal method of interactive…argument” Given how resolutely McCain refused to interact with Obama, I wouldn’t describe it as a debate. As for whether it was truly a town hall meeting, I can only say it wasn’t a tenth as interesting or fun as the ones I’ve attended. Dumb decision and/or dumb execution.
Then there were the questions: Call me naive, but I think the American public is smarter than the questions seemed to indicate. How’s a candidate supposed to answer three variations of “Why should we trust you with our money?” except to say something almost as inane? What kind of format doesn’t allow for follow-up questions from the audience? Why did Brokow ask the candidates who they’d pick as Treasury Secretary when he must have known they couldn’t or wouldn’t answer except in time-wasting generalities? Although we didn’t spend forty minutes talking about whether a flag pin symbolizes patriotism (remember the ABC debates last April?), there was little to compel the candidates to get substantive, except, I will admit, when it came to health care issues.
Speaking of time-wasting, I stayed up to watch a little post-debate analysis. I even switched between Fox, NBC and CNN. Apparently McCain didn’t do what he needed to do, although it’s completely unclear what it was the talking heads wanted from him. I may surprise some people here but his use of the phrase “that one” to describe Obama was way over-analysed. McCain is thinking on his feet, he’s clearly ticked off to be sharing the stage with a man he views as a young upstart (as was Hillary) and both candidates have shown flashes of real disdain for each other, although McCain’s gotten worse at hiding his and Obama’s gotten better. Give it a rest!
I was disappointed with some of the candidates’ answers. McCain is going to buy up bad mortgages but how, what with his proposed tax cuts and his “win at all costs” war? Obama is going to end the war in Iraq responsibly and promptly move troops over to Afghanistan and how does that help stretched-to-the-limit servicemen and women? I was also disappointed in Brokow, who wasn’t able to keep it together or add any spark to the proceedings. And let’s not get started on the questions asked by we, the people.
The debate was certainly not what you’d call terrific entertainment. Maybe the candidates are tired; I’ve read somewhere Brokow is. I know I am. This entire campaign has gone on too long and, as much as the outcome matters to me, I’m ready to have it over with so we can end all the stoopiness.
1 Woman' s Vu by Nikki Stern 
“Stop the Stoopy!” – my sister will be so proud. Thanks, Jim
Fair enough. Here’s an alternate take:
Sure, it didn’t work as theater and a small minority of the questions were inane (e.g. Treasury Secretary, “what don’t you know?”)
But overall the questions touched on almost all important policy issues and the responses included somewhat clear and mostly distinct policy approaches outlined by the two presidential candidates.
Pick Obama if you prefer: health reform through incremental changes that preserve our employer-sponsored system, a timetable to end the Iraq War, etc.
Pick McCain if you prefer: health reform through putting us all on the individual market and deregulating the industry, no timetable to end the Iraq War, etc.
And the candidates actually did a pretty good job of compellingly laying out their own policy approaches as well as the general themes of their own candidacies.
Seriously, all Americans who care about policy (and particularly people who support Obama) should REJOICE that this was a issue-centric debate that highlighted the real differences between these candidates.
Your analysis was far more thoughtful than my whiny little rant, I admit. I’m actually grateful issues were discussed and differences significantly highlighted. But if we’re not going to have actual debates,I’d rather read about the candidates’ positions and use my television for more dramatic purposes. I’m kidding of course…
Okay, a lot of the questions were stupid, but the best of them called for a substantiveness that neither candidate could– or would– come up with. Some of that had to do with the event’s “stoopy” format, which more or less guaranteed that the participants would rattle out a series of talking points. Some of it had to do with the candidates’ reluctance to deliver the bad news. It’s pretty clear that the news is very bad, and will continue to be so, that even a successful bail-out (what IS the difference between a bail-out and a ‘rescue package’?) will mean abandoning things that the candidates, and the American people, want. Obama’s reluctance struck me as timid. McCain’s as just deceitful. His standard answer to half the questions was “I know how to” … fix social security… or win wars. . . or get Osama bin Laden. Which led me to wonder, Well, for Pete’s sake, why hasn’t he told the President?
I tend to agree with you Nikki. I was just watching as an observer, since my focus has to be on the election next week here in Canada. However, I did not like the format, and didn’t feel like I was getting a lot of new insight. Maybe I’m being a bit patriotic, but I really was impressed with our leader debate here last week. You can check it out at http://watch.ctv.ca/news/election-2008/english-debate/#clip98314
I liked the round table format, and I thought the moderator was far superior to Tom Brokaw.