I realize how furiously I'm swimming against the tide here, but I'll give it a shot anyway. Let's start with a fact that has nothing to do with what happened last night on CNN, or what happened a month ago on Fox News: You can tell pretty much everything you need to know about every presidential candidate by spending a few hours on Google.
You can look up their policy positions and their backgrounds. You can find video clips of them speaking. You can find articles by their critics containing lots of arguments against them. You can do this and, if you're a serious voter, you should do this.
And if you do, then nothing you see in a media-contrived "debate" should change the assessment you arrived at as a result of your own research. You should not reject a candidate who has all the attributes you're looking for because he "looked small" on stage (whatever that means) or because he "disappeared for 45 minutes at a time" or because he said "oops".
Your initial research pertains to the actual policy positions and governing capabilities of a prospective president of the United States. Stuff that matters. Stuff that reflects what this person might do in office, and how well that person might do it.
What happens on stage at a media-contrived "debate" allows you to assess that person's skill in the realm of performance art, which apparently is quite fascinating to Americans, but is almost completely irrelevant to the attributes required to be a good president.
Americans are drawn for reasons unknown to very big televised events. Baseball fans are drawn to the World Series. Football fans are drawn to the Super Bowl. Some people like American Idol and Dancing With the Stars for reasons that I cannot explain to you. And apparently the run-of-the-mill political junkie likes to watch these debates - assessing moment-by-moment who did well, who uncorked a memorable line and who "moved the needle" or some such thing.
This has become relevant in the parlance of American politics precisely because the hardest thing about running for president is not to become qualified or to develop solid positions. It's to get people's attention. And the debate serves as an opportunity for candidates to get your attention because the media don't cover them unless they're insulting another candidate's face or doing some other thing deemed newsworthy by the guardians of the First Amendment - the very same people asking the questions at these reality shows for political junkies.
And because the only value of the debate is to provide attention for candidates who are otherwise not getting it - even though they may very well deserve to get it - the goal of every candidate is to do something that makes you remember them, which is understandable but again is completely irrelevant to the challenges inherent to the presidency.
Ultimately, the importance of the debates represents a failure of the electorate. Failing to do your homework, then sitting down to watch this two-hour Vaudeville act and making up your mind on that basis, reveals you to be an unserious voter. And if you want to watch it for the purpose of providing your own on-the-spot analysis, that's fine, but you too are providing something more akin to a theater review than you are a serious assessment of who would make the best president.
I know this is what none of you want to hear because everyone wants to talk this morning about who did well, who helped themselves, who landed a blow, etc. Do what you want. None of it is really important.
I realize how furiously I'm swimming against the tide here, but I'll give it a shot anyway. Let's start with a fact that has nothing to do with what happened last night on CNN, or what happened a month ago on Fox News: You can tell pretty much everything you need to know about every presidential candidate by spending a few hours on Google.
You can look up their policy positions and their backgrounds. You can find video clips of them speaking. You can find articles by their critics containing lots of arguments against them. You can do this and, if you're a serious voter, you should do this.
