An update to my earlier post on the 2008 Presidential Debate schedule:
The WSJ’s Washington Wire blog provides some additional details regarding the format:
The commission is limiting the presidential debates to 90 minutes and will allow for only one moderator — welcome relief for debate fans frustrated with the sometimes lengthy Republican and Democratic debates and the large casts of moderators not to mention video questions posed by snowmen.
The first presidential debate will be on domestic policy, the second will take be a open forum in a town hall meeting setting, and the third will focus on foreign policy. The vice presidential debate will cover both domestic and foreign policy. In all but the town hall meeting, the candidates will be seated at a table with the moderator.[...]
Also — third-party candidates be warned — only candidates that appear on enough state ballots to have a “mathematical chance” of winning the majority vote of the Electoral College, and are polling at or about 15% nationally can participate in the debates. Moderators will be decided next summer.
OK, so theoretically there will be a bit more focus on a particular topic…which, now that I think about it, is tradition (not to mention a welcome change from the primary debates). However, I’m still concerned about trying to cram all the issues of interest into merely 4½ hours of short-answer questions.
I’m also a bit disappointed that the powers that be didn’t take advantage of the rise of online video. I actually do like the idea of a YouTube debate—the idea of ordinary citizens actually getting to ask questions directly to the candidates, and to express a preference among the different potential questions being posed. However, I can see that the concept could stand some maturity (hopefully the GOP YouTube debate will undo some of the damage the talking snowman did), and I’d understand concerns about favoring one video service over another. At least it’s been mentioned that questions submitted over the internet will be accepted for the town hall debate.
I disagree with the “15% rule”, however. I can understand the desire to avoid crowding the stage with extra-nutty minor candidates…a desire that is probably particularly understandable after the umpteen primary debates we’ve had so far. However, if a candidate has the organization to get on the ballot in almost every state, you’d think that that would be sufficient significance to get an invitation to at least one debate.