How a Debate Should Be

At this point I’ve only watched the first hour out of the four hours of debate tonight. And only about 45 minutes of it was actually debate. And this is of course only the Republicans, the Democrats come later.

But I’ll say right now that the format for this first 45 minutes… Very few interruptions from the moderator, just occasional questions to get conversation started… and a lot of interaction between the candidates… and long form answers without buzzers or time limits… this is by far the most substantive and informative debate I have seen so far this election cycle. And at this point I have watched ALL of them. 17 Democratic debates and 14 Republican debates. Most of them sucked. Most of them just let the candidates make little speeches, or posture for the sound bites.

In this one I’ve seen the candidates interact with each other in a far more natural way. And I’ve seen them have the chance to spend several minutes explaining themselves, and then ask questions of each other, which were then answered in turn. There were some chaotic moments at times, but even then one learned something.

I gather the rest of the Republican debate will not have this same format. That is a shame. This is how all debates should be. I look forward to seeing the Democrats in the same sort of format once I watch the rest of the Republican debate.

I just needed to go ahead and post this now, because I was somewhat dumbfounded that, for once, I was actually seeing a real debate with some real content too it where I actually had the possibility of learning something new about the candidates.

3 hour delay aside, good job ABC and Charles Gibson. Bravo.