Debate Posturing

28 August, 2004

John Kerry, smarting from the Swift Boat Veterans flap, has challenged President Bush to a series of weekly debates. It's a pretty typical stunt to try to make oneself seem to be taking the high road, and as usual the challengee, Bush, has declined the offer.

On the one hand I'm sympathetic to the desire to focus on the issues, though it's a bit rich hearing the suggestion come from a man whose entire campaign has been based on the fact that he briefly fought in Vietnam.

On the other hand, I doubt that Kerry's proposed debates would actually work to focus the campaigns on the issues. Presidential debates make a mockery of the word "debate." The candidates don't engage with each other's ideas. They just look for ways to segue from the question into a canned spiel made up of focus-group-tested sound bites.

And even if there are some serious proposals on the issues in those prefabricated comments, we can't trust the media to pay attention. Reporters are too lazy to think about what the candidates are proposing and how that relates to the real situation in this country. Rather, they focus on matters of style -- like Al Gore's sighing and eye-rolling. It's a nice little self-fulfilling prophecy in which reporting on it makes it news, and the fact that it's news justifies continuing to report on it.

Of course, the media isn't entirely stupid. They know that serious discussion of the issues doesn't sell papers. Neither does it get voters to the polls, or inspire donations to campaigns and 527s. A few debates are just a band-aid on a gaping wound in American democracy.

Stentor Danielson