Tag: presidential debates
CPD Moderators Announced - Is McCain Playing?
The CPD debates are taking shape. University hosts are preparing, Obama has signed on, moderators are announced, but where is the McCain camp? Who will lead negotiations, are they holding out for more Town Hall debates, might they accept only part of the package? Holding out for some presumed strategic position is a long employed tactic, but typically it only leads to bad headlines and a last minute acquiesce.
First presidential debate
Friday, September 26
The University of Mississippi, Oxford, Miss.
Jim Lehrer
Executive Editor and Anchor, The NewsHour, PBS
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: Moderators, CPD, presidential debates
The Debating Spirit of 1963
[editor's note, by Ross Smith] promoted to front page and time stamp updated to kick this to the top -- Ross
(co-authored by Kelly Congdon and R. Gordon Mitchell)
As debate scholars, we applaud the June 4th letter from John McCain to Barack Obama proposing an ambitious series of town hall debates prior to the Democratic National Convention. While debates have become routine fixtures in modern presidential campaigns, there are some striking features of the McCain proposal.
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: McCain, Obama, presidential debates, Brett O'Donnell, debate formats
Libertarian Debate on C-SPAN - May 24
Libertarian Party to hold candidate debate in Denver tonight. The debate will take place at 7:00 PM (MST), moderated by Fox News contributor James Pinkerton. The debate is scheduled to be broadcast live by C-SPAN.
From the website The Liberty Papers
Half of the candidates vying for the Libertarian Party's nomination for president have qualified to participate in tonight's presidential debate at the 2008 Libertarian National Convention.
Candidates must collect 30 tokens in order to qualify for a 16-minute nominating speech to be given on Sunday before the voting begins. For the presidential debate, candidates had to collect 10 percent of the delegate tokens available by Saturday morning. That number was 57.
The candidates who qualified for Saturday's debate are as follows:
Bob Barr (94 tokens)
Wayne Allyn Root (94 tokens)
Mary Ruwart (94 tokens)
Mike Gravel (67 tokens)
Mike Jingozian (63 tokens)
George Phillies (62 tokens)
Steve Kub by 60 tokens)
"We're very excited to have a healthy number of candidates involved in tonight's presidential debate," says Libertarian Party National Media Coordinator Andrew Davis.
The debate happened, little media attention and on multiple ballots the next day Barr gets the Libertarian nomination.
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: Libertarian, presidential debates, Bob Barr, Mike Gravel, third party debates
The "Beginning-of-the-End" for the CPD
The Commission on Presidential Debate ability to control presidential debates is about to end. Likely there will be four CPD debate in the fall but there may a lot more debates as well.
The latest entry is set for Sept. 18 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, featuring Google and YouTube technology to generate questions for the candidates.
The three remaining candidates have been contacted about participating and have not signed on (waiting for the Democratic nomination), but notably no one had rejected the idea in deference to the CPD.
New Orleans, spurned by the commission in the selection process as "not ready" has the support of the Louisiana political establishment, including popular Governor Bobby Jindal, continuing a lobbying effort begun nearly a year ago.
And why shouldn't the candidates agree. Exposure is the name of the game and there are easy alternates to the major networks and inflexible CDP structure. Why not spread the risk and recovery time from three over-hyped CPD productions? Surely the 24/7 networks would be willing, having scored all time ratings during the primary period.
New Orleans may just be the tip of the iceberg. The CPD, which scooped the League of Women Voters to take control for the two major parties, may be endangered themselves.
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: CPD, New Orleans, Presidential Debates, Jindal, League of Women Voters, Nework debates, YouTube
The Presidential Debate Season Continues - Debating more Debates
The primary debate season may never end. CNN has proposed holding two nationally televised debates from Ohio on February 27 (Democrats) and February 28 (GOP). This would be CNN sponsored 12th and 13th debates.
If the nomination process has not finalized by the end of month, candidates may be forced into yet more shared appearances. Perhaps CNN is buoyed by attracting 8.3 million viewers for last Thursday's Hollywood debate.
Also developing is a debate about which debates: Texas vs. Ohio/CNN vs. MSNBC.
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: Presidential Debates, Houston, CNN, Ohio, Ratings, Number of debates
Will the CPD Ever Announce the 2008 Presidential Debates?
The Commission on Presidential Debates is set to announce the "real debates" for the fall of 2008 by the end of October. The announcement of hosts has been rumored for over a month now, but the commission continues site visits and remains silent. I cannot find an announcement date and only vague time frames in media coverage. Their web site is astonishingly moribund, still featuring applications to host for 2008.
Media interest apparently has also all but disappeared. Finding a news story handicapping the selection process is tough. Essentially they don't exit. Everything else political receives ample speculation but not the Commission's work.
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: presidential debates, commission on presidential debates, announcements, 2008 debates
Practice Makes Perfect - Fred in Dearborn
Republican debate in Dearborn concluded this afternoon. The debate is one among many, and had a "been there, done that" feeling, save a couple aspects.
First, it was Fred Thompson's debate debut. Expectations were set so low that Thompson had opportunities. He held his own, but not much more. Answers tended to show the lack of well practiced routines(e. g., Romney's strength through words or McCain's return to his political truths), and even walked the line of down-home homily without sounding slow. Nonetheless his answers showed the absence of months of practice. It also seemed he received less time early, although later he joined in and gained comfort. It will be interesting to see how Fred spins in the collective media.
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: presidential debates, primary debates, Fred Thompson, Economy
Equal and adequate time?
Years ago, Jeff Auer commented (after the Kennedy Nixon debates in 1960) that an event called a debate had certain characteristics, one of which was that the participants would need to have equal and adequate time for dealing with the topic(s) of the debate. Seeing the "talk clock" for the Republican primary debate held last evening in New Hampshire tells just part of the story about the usefulness of the format with respect to the criterion of equal and adequate time. It's not just a matter of how much time certain candidates struggle to get in a "gang" debate format; what also matters is when those candidates get to talk, and about what.
One of the most notable differences between the typical general election debate format and the ones that have dominated the early primary campaign debate season is that the current slate of debates makes no pretense about trying to provide equal time to the candidates on the stage, and the extent to which the format has failed in that regard is unquestionable. The moderator spoke almost twice as long as did the candidate who had the most "talk time," and almost four times as long as the candidate who received the fewest opportunities to speak. So we know Wolf Blitzer a lot better now, but what of the others on the stage?
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: debate formats, primary debates, presidential debates
Of Expectations and Tiers
Watching the early pitch on NBC Nightly News is just like watching the Superbowl pre game show. Brian Williams and Tim Russert set up the "contest" as if a champion will be crowned at the end of the night. Russert has just laid out the expectations game that purports to define the standards that the media and pundits will use to determine winners and losers tonight. Russert puts Clinton, Obama, and Edwards in his "first tier." For these candidates, the focus is on not making mistakes. Hillary cannot appear aloof, Obama must show mastery of policy specifics, and Edwards must square his lifestyle with his concern for poverty (Russert).
Placed in the "second tier" are Richardson, who needs to show his executive experience, Biden, whose partition plan for Iraq needs to be shown to be the only realistic solution, and Dodd, who needs to emphasize his bipartisan, legislative experience (Russert). Again, all of these claims are according to Russert and become "conventional wisdom prior to the debate.
Do the democrats have a plan to beat the expectations game? Read more...
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: Democratic Primaries 2008, South Carolina, Presidential Debates, Media
Presidential Debates Coming Soon
It's now fewer than 4 months until the first of the presidential debates of the 2008 (yes, they will be in 2007) campaign season.
At first, it looked like South Carolina would host the debate debuts of the Democratic and Republican contenders. In August, the South Carolina GOP announced that they would host a debate May 15, 2007 to be held at the University of South Carolina for GOP presidential hopefuls. Last week MSNBC and the SC Democratic party announced that they will host a debate April 26, 2007 at South Carolina State University for the Democratic contenders.
But today New Hampshire jumped to the front of the line with the announcement by CNN, WUMR and the Union Leader that on April 4 and 5 of this year the news organizations would be hosting presidential debates.
DebateScoop will have full coverage. We plan to have on site as well as on line reporters and analysts. While the "real" impact of the debates is, ironically, best assessed from the mediated perspective, behind the scenes reporting will enable us to round out the picture and to ask questions of the participants (candidates, spinners, media) that may help explain what we see on the screen.
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: 2008, presidential debates, 2008 primaries
