Dreary Formats

The CPD claims to have improved presidential debate formats.  There is some truth to this assertion.  Unlike the League of Women Voters, the CPD managed to escape the restrictive Press Panelist Format, which consisted of seated reporters asking all the questions, and hosted the first Single Moderator and Town Hall presidential debates.

However, the CPD did not develop the "new" formats.  The major party candidates, for various reasons, chose to break from the Press Panelist Format.  In 1992, for example, Bill Clinton proposed using the town hall format because it would highlight his interpersonal skills.

More importantly, despite the increased diversity of formats, the debates are not really debates.  They are glorified bipartisan news conferences.  The only difference from joint news conference to joint news conference is who asks all the questions - Bob Scheiffer or Jim Lehrer or a group of undecided voters. The candidates rarely speak to each other during the events, and because they are peppered by a succession of disparate questions, they often superficially glaze over the issues and recite prepackaged soundbites. "It's too much show business and too much prompting, too much artificiality, and not really debates," said former President George Bush. "They're rehearsed appearances."

The restrictive and artificial nature of the format is a consequence of the major party candidates exerting excessive control over the debate process.  The candidates and their managers extensively manipulate the formats in the following manner:

• When the League of Women Voters sponsored the debates, panelists and moderators were always permitted follow-up questions, which allowed them to get past rehearsed answers and challenge the responses of the candidates.  But when the CPD took over, the candidates have explicitly limited follow-up questions.  In 1996, follow-up questions were banned for all of the presidential debates.
  
  
• The candidates have strictly prohibited themselves from questioning each other during the debates.  Each of the Memorandum of Understanding states, "There will be no direct candidate-to-candidate questioning."
  
  
• In 1980, the League of Women Voters selected Bill Moyers to serve as moderator after consulting with the Nieman Foundation, Pulitzer Prize authorities, the Radio and TV News Directors Association, Newspaper Publishers' Association, and the American Society of Newspaper Editors. It is unlikely that someone as challenging as Moyers will ever moderate a CPD-sponsored debate because the CPD allows the major party candidates to handpick moderators or veto recommendations.  As to be expected, the candidates generally select moderators who ask predictable, safe questions. For example, in 1992, 1996 and 2000, the candidates selected Jim Lehrer to moderate every single presidential debate.
  
  
• Viewers and pundits have praised the town hall format for increasing spontaneity and citizen participation.  But major party negotiators have transformed the popular format into a staged charade.  In 1992, audience members could ask anything they wanted.  In 1996, follow-up questions and questions seeking clarification were banned.  In 2000, the questions actually had to be written down on index cards and screened by moderator Jim Lehrer prior to the debates.   In 2004 and 2008, the questions had to be written down on index cards and screened by the moderator before the debates, and any town hall audience member who asked a question that differed from the question submitted on the index card would have her micophone turned off.

The CPD is partly responsible for these format deficiencies. No other sponsor has allowed the major party candidates to negotiate exclusively. No other sponsor has implemented, without protest, Memoranda of Understanding that eliminate spontaneity, accountability and confrontation.

In 2008, in response to Open Debates' criticism of its restrictive formats, the CPD proposed positive improvements to the presidential debate formats.  The CPD declared that for the first time ever, debate participants would be encouraged to directly respond to each other's statements without excessive interference from the moderator.  During the 2008 debates, there was a bit more communication between George W. Bush and Barack Obama than there had been in previous CPD-sponsored debates.  Such improvements in format should be applauded.