Aloha folks,
Was talking with a few friends yesterday and starting talking about the Presidential Debate process. We all agreed that we don't like it now, it ends up being two people each spouting their talking points on just about whatever they wish, often so unrelated to the question that it is funny. Then the political hacks on both sides go on tv ranting about their victory and how their candidate won.
We were thinking about a way to "judge" these debates. For the moment, assume it is possible to get a panel of five honestly independent (I realize the leap there, but one can hope) judges. Would it be fair to ask them to rate each response a candidate gives to a question? I know that then we deal with who is the judge, did they ever work for a party or party donor, etc... this is just a theoretical conversation...
Maybe rate them on the relevancy of the answer (not good or bad, just did they answer the question), or level of detail (versus just flowing generalities)? Or other rating categories?
What do you fine folks think? How could we change the Presidential Debate process to be more effective at learning about the candidates?
(Putting aside the obvious cage match, or UFC-type contest of course. I mean we would all love to see a cage match, followed by a free-throw contest, but since that won't happen, what realistically could?)
Was talking with a few friends yesterday and starting talking about the Presidential Debate process. We all agreed that we don't like it now, it ends up being two people each spouting their talking points on just about whatever they wish, often so unrelated to the question that it is funny. Then the political hacks on both sides go on tv ranting about their victory and how their candidate won.
We were thinking about a way to "judge" these debates. For the moment, assume it is possible to get a panel of five honestly independent (I realize the leap there, but one can hope) judges. Would it be fair to ask them to rate each response a candidate gives to a question? I know that then we deal with who is the judge, did they ever work for a party or party donor, etc... this is just a theoretical conversation...
Maybe rate them on the relevancy of the answer (not good or bad, just did they answer the question), or level of detail (versus just flowing generalities)? Or other rating categories?
What do you fine folks think? How could we change the Presidential Debate process to be more effective at learning about the candidates?
(Putting aside the obvious cage match, or UFC-type contest of course. I mean we would all love to see a cage match, followed by a free-throw contest, but since that won't happen, what realistically could?)
