Debate Rumblings

Professor J,

There was a lot of debate about the debate. Last week's first debate between the candidates (well the two we are allowed to hear from) pulled in a little over 62 million viewers. With 131 million voters in the 2008 election, we could say nearly half of voters (assuming that most who were watching could vote) watched the debate. I'm guessing if we take into account the high turnout in '08 due to people's excitement about being able to vote for the first African American to run for president, we might expect this year's turnout to return to the 2004 number of roughly 122 million, so we could say very nearly half of voters watched.

I'm slightly encouraged by the fact that half of voters would take time to inform themselves by watching. But the point of a debate is to make your points, provide evidence as to why you are right and your opponent is wrong (or at least not as right), and to change people's minds if they weren't going to vote for you. I'm not sure how successful either candidate was on that third one. The comments I've seen and heard are along the lines of "Our guy won," or "I didn't really want to vote for Romney but I feel better about it now," or "Their guy just showed how (pick one) sleazy, arrogant, uninformed, he is."  I haven't heard anyone say "I wasn't going to vote for him, but he made a really good point," or "I hadn't thought about it that way before."

We have lost our ability to listen. Hey, haven't we mentioned that before?

Having watched that debate I was pretty excited about another debate that just took place: The Rumble in the Air Conditioned Auditorium between Bill O'Reilly and Jon Stewart. The country needs a good laugh about now and those two provided it. It wasn't all fun and games. They covered some serious topics in a passionate debate while keeping a sense of humor, being good sports, and maintaining a relationship in the process. They made a great case not only for their respective ideas for but for the importance of civil discourse, and how the country suffers because of our lack of it.

Hey, haven't we mentioned that before?

Here are some quotes from the debate:

In reference to Romney's 47% O'Reilly said:  “About 20 percent of us are slackers, and it’s a growing industry.”

O'Reilly: “The mind-set is, if I can gin the system, I’ll do it because it’s easy.”

Stewart:  “If you take advantage of a tax break, you’re a smart businessman. If you take advantage of something you need to not be hungry, you’re a moocher.”

 O'Reilly: “It doesn’t matter what [President] Bush did. The job of the president now is to get the deficit under control, and you got to cut stuff.”

 While discussing cutting funding for PBS, Stewart said: "Give me back the $800 billion for the Iraq war and children's television is on the house."

O'Reilly: “You gotta let the free market run away a little bit. You gotta unleash the machine.”

A funny quip by Stewart (We can only hope that a somewhat less than civically-informed populace got the joke): "The first sentence of the Constitution mentions unions and welfare. I don't know what to tell ya."

There was one thing that both debates had in common. The speakers ran over the moderator. Though viewers would have much preferred looking at E.D. Hill compared to Jim Lehrer, at one point after a lengthy exchange, O'Reilly turned to Hill as she attempted to ask a question and said "Are you still here?"

It was refreshing to see a debate that was fun, and where every answer hadn't been focus grouped to death and polished beyond any substantive meaning. A friendly yet fiery argument that didn't leave frost hanging in the air. In his closing remarks Stewart referenced the other candidates we aren't allowed access to, specifically naming Gary Johnson.

Hey, haven't we...

Oh, never mind.