That’s Debatable

We’re in debate season here in the U.S. 

(Last week I said we were in earthquake season.  We are also in football season, baseball playoff season, and back to school season.  For weeks they’ve been selling pumpkins for what they now call the Halloween season (it used to be one day!).  Oh yeah, it’s the season of autumn.)

67 million people watched the first televised Presidential debate this past week between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.  There are two more, Oct. 16 and 22, plus a Vice Presidential one Oct. 11. 

Personally I’ve always found these debates very painful to watch live, but I watch them later on You Tube.  I recommend that, if only for the theater, the opportunities to yell at the screen, “Answer the question!” and the feelings of superiority that surely you would be a better moderator. 

The next morning headlines screamed in surprise that Romney had won, because he was so vigorous, assertive, that Obama seemed distracted, passive.  After awarding victory because of body language, commentators eventually noted that Romney seemed to have changed dramatically from extreme right to the middle, modifying if not outright rejecting and even denying his previously promised policies.  He sounded like the Governor of Massachusetts who had created proto-Obama health care.  When he denied ever wanting to cut taxes for the rich, Obama seemed asleep.  Finally, a day or so later, people, like our friend Ed Kilgore started counting up the lies Romney told; fact checking groups agreed there were 24 Romney lies in 37 minutes.  That’s how you “win?”

Some major things were missing in the first debate. Glaringly absent. Maybe they will show up in subsequent debates? 

We’ve had a big to-do in recent weeks over the “replacement referees,” high school and college refs who worked the first few weeks of the National Football League season because the regular refs were on strike.  After a series of really bad calls and public outcry, the refs and owners finally settled last week.

It seemed we had only “replacement candidates” at this debate, along with a replacement moderator.  We want the real guys.

So the first things that were missing were the real candidates and a real moderator:

The Real Romney: If there is such a man.  He changes his tune so often.  At the debate he just threw out the window many of his long held positions.  Was this the move to the center that candidates often make in the last month – campaign to the extreme in the primaries, become more moderate in the general election? They finally shook the Etch a Sketch.   Our friend Ed Kilgore disputes even this, saying Romney was just more enthusiastic about his lying that usual, but his positions really didn’t change that much.

The Real Obama:  He was flat and uncombatative and did not call Romney on his lies.  Since that night he has come out swinging, in ads and appearances.  But his supporters were sadly disappointed that night.  Frank Bruni in the NY Times said Obama "was definitely playing to maintain his lead and willing to risk blandness if it saved him from coming across as a bully. But he used less then a quarter of the ammunition available to him, even as Romney fired bullet after bullet after bullet." (Why so much violent imagery?) Some others pointed out the challenge Obama always has in coming across as an angry black man - too scary for those poor white gun owners.

A Real Moderator: Veteran retired 78 year old newsman Jim Lehrer, who has been moderating debates since 1988, was widely criticized for vague questions ("What would you like to ask your opponent?) and horrible time management, allowing all kinds of interrupting, going over time, wandering off topic. Someone said he was a potted plant. Even the replacement refs called penalties, albeit inconsistently.

Other missing items:

Third Parties:  There are other people running for president – Green Party, Libertarian, Peace and Freedom and ten other parties with at least some electoral votes already.  Where are they? 

Important Issues like Immigration and Women’s Health Care:

The topic of this first debate was supposedly “domestic issues.”  All they talked about was money; jobs, the economy, regulations, taxes.  There are many other domestic issues besides money, such as immigration and women’s health care; these have widespread impact, and the candidates differ sharply about them.  And they are issues upon which the President can act decisively by himself (sic) (ie without Congress) and which affect what judges they nominate.  And if we want to stick with money issues, immigration reform would have huge economic impacts.  And women’s work lives and contribution to our economy would suffer tremendously if we aren’t free from unplanned pregnancies. 

Another Important Issue Missing: Science and the Environment: No questions about the environment, Keystone XL pipeline, air quality standards, climate change.  Oh, I forgot, Mitt did say, “I love coal.”  But Obama, who made climate issues central to his 2008 campaign, has been timid and calculating in his silence this year.  Shame on you.

ScienceDebate.org put it this way before the debate: 

In a recent poll almost 85% of likely voters said they wanted the candidates to hold a debate on Science. Why? Because, more than anything else, our kids' future health and happiness depend on it. And yet, in spite of the many critical issues involved, I'm willing to bet that almost none of the following questions get asked in any of the debates:

What does science know about climate change, and as president what will you do about it? What about the disastrous state of our oceans where entire species are at risk of extinction? What can we do about the oncoming crisis of fresh water scarcity? What will you do -- if anything -- to encourage the development of alternative energy sources less damaging to the environment? How much are you willing to spend on the space program which informs us not just about the scope and beauty of the universe but about the health of the earth? What about vaccinations and public health, the safety of our food, or lack of it, and the dangers of global pandemics and deliberate biological attacks?

Too grim? Too apocalyptic? Too "global"? Then how about some down-to-earth questions about science and the American economy? Science and technology have been responsible for over half the growth of the U.S. economy since WWII. Much of this economically bountiful innovation came as a result of government investment in scientific research. At what level should this continue? Or should big government get out of the way entirely? And where are the American innovators of the future going to come from when a recent comparison of 15-year-olds in 65 countries found the average science scores among U.S. students ranked 23rd, while average U.S. math scores ranked 31st.

Decent Press Coverage and Analysis:  It was all about who won, not what the substance was. Winning seemed to be defined as being energized, even loud and bullying, rather than offering reasoned arguments (“too professorial”.)  Much attention to “zingers” and disappointment at how few there were. 

It took a few days to get fact checking reports (see my column of Aug. 19 on the topic of lying and fact checking) and by then conventional wisdom had set in that Mitt had a win, lies or not. 

The New York Times even reviewed it as a piece of entertainment on the TV page:  “Theirs was a glaringly public confrontation that looked oddly intimate and personal. And that may help explain why tens of million of people tune in — there is nothing else like it on television. It’s not a gladiator fight, or a boxing match or the Super Bowl; it’s not a quiz show, a singing competition, a beauty pageant or a finale of “Survivor.” If anything, these confrontations look more like a dispute in couples therapy: neither partner can really win, but either one could get rattled and blurt out something unforgivable.  That scale-tipping moment didn’t happen.”

George W. Bush:  That’s for me the most glaring missing factor.  Why doesn’t Obama ever say his name?  He’s not Voldemort.  (Well, maybe he is.)  Occasionally Obama will say about Romney’s plan to cut taxes for millionaires, “We’ve tried that and it didn’t’ work; it got us into the mess we are in now.” But even then he doesn’t capitalize on the Democratic scorn and Republican shame about Bush.  Bush, now totally absent from public life, was the first ex-president in 50 years not to attend his party’s convention.  Someone wrote that for the Republicans not to have George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney at their convention made the GOP not a political party but a witness protection program.  It’s like our nation has had that memory erasing thing from Men in Black waved in front of our eyes.  George who?

Can’t wait to watch the next debates.  At least we are having the first woman moderator in 20 years.

Copyright © 2012 Deborah Streeter