La Vida Politica

Viva Wolf Vegas: Nevada Hosts Reality TV Debate

By Emily Esterson, 11-15-07

Call me a traditionalist, but bring back the bell. The buzzer. The 90 second answer, the 30 second response.

That’s my overall thesis for last night’s CNN Democratic presidential candidates’ debate. Whatever producer decided it was a good idea to “free-form” the format, allowing the candidates to answer questions out of order and to wave their hands madly like the second grader in the back of the classroom who knows the right answer but never gets called on (who’s name was likely Dennis Kucinich), was dead wrong. If you’re interested in the politics of the debate, or “who won” the debate, stay with me for just a moment while I engage in a little media criticism.

Another imaginary backstage discussion may have been about “firing them up.” First question, Wolf Blitzer throws the steak to the Hillary-Obama attack dogs. Hillary volleys, Obama shouts, and the ever smiling Edwards tries to get a word in edgewise. Forget the other guys. Chris who? Bill who? Hillary gets a laugh saying she is wearing an “asbestos pantsuit,” just one of several very good Hillary moments (more on that later). The way the pre-game show was scripted, it was almost as if Wolf Blitzer had been directed to get Obama and Hillary going after each other. Unpleasant to watch, and more importantly, completely uninformative. Between the shouting back and forth and the interrupting, who really cared what the candidates were saying? What was the question again? It was almost enough to make me shirk my responsibilities to New West readers and turn the darn thing off ("doesn’t ‘The Office’ start right about now?).

But then, Christopher Dodd says this: “When a campaign is about turning up the heat, the American people turn off.” By the volume of the applause, the audience agreed with him. Enough egging them on, Blitzer, let’s get to the issues. CNN’s ill-conceived attempt, even if it was unconscious, of creating a reality-tv-like debate, complete with poor camera work and shouting participants, failed miserably, lucky for us.

After Dodd’s comment, all returned to civility and issues. There was still hand waving and desperate attempts to talk, but—imagine this—issues bubbled to the surface, with real answers. The candidates began to push back on Blitzer’s determination to get a yes/no answer to such questions as “Do you support or oppose giving drivers licenses to illegal immigrants.” Obama attempted to add a level of complexity to the answer, which is about much more than letting illegal immigrants (who we should stop “demonizing,") in the door at the DMV. As he and Richardson pointed out, immigration reform is the issue, not drivers’ licenses. But Blitzer kept hoping for that simple sound bite to characterize the candidates. He kept pushing for the yes or the no, even on issues as mired in diplomatic muck as Pakistan and as seriously complicated as nuclear energy.

Through it all, some moments stood out: By far the favorite line of the debate came when reporter Campbell Brown (female) asked Hillary Clinton if she was playing the gender card when she responded to the last debate by saying the boys were “piling on.”

“I’m not exploiting the gender card. They’re not attacking me because I’m a woman. They’re attacking me because I’m ahead.” (rousing cheers). And she added, that it is humbling and exciting to see the progress made in her lifetime that she could be running against a Latino and an African American. Suddenly, it was very uncool to be a white man.

Since tonight’s debate started out as sound bites, it makes sense to finish with them:
Dennis Kucinich wants to impeach President Bush.
Bill Richardson wants you to know how experienced he is (he even managed to get the North Koreans involved in the debate).
Bill Richardson wants to give peace a chance.
Hillary is funny and human. She’s likable. She’s strong.
Obama is well spoken and unmemorable.
Ditto Edwards. He smiles a lot.
Dodd likes Republicans.
Biden, oh, was he there?

Did we learn anything new? Did this undecided voter decide who to vote for? Did the debate turn anyone on, or off, any of the candidates? I doubt it, but at least we made it past the first horrible ten minutes and got to hear some real answers. If Blitzer’s “yes/no” tactic was meant to push the candidates off their stumps to explain the thinking behind the rhetoric, then it worked. What I saw were candidates who were, each uniquely qualified to run the country, and all want it very badly. For once, we have some good choices.

I’d like to believe that CNN producers were, by using a simpleton’s method of demanding a positive or negative answer to infinitely more multi-layered questions, actually elicited interesting responses. But that would be a little optimistic. The cynic in me says, ‘Nah. It’s gonna be a long election season.’

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.