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Debate questions reflect wrong notions about politics
And we’re back.
I took some time off, because this blog is really about the general election, not the primaries. But now we’re close enough to the general to start taking note of stuff.
As this is written, the hot debate that’s relevant here is about the Clinton-Obama debate of Wednesday night. The Friday stories are largely about how questioners George Stephanapolous and that Gibson guy are taking flack because the first 50-minutes of the debate were taken up with questions about various flaps: “bitterness,” Hillary’s memories about Bosnia, all that. Lots of people are saying the subject should have been Iraq, trade or the budget or something like that.
I certainly agree. The Democrats need to be pressed, for example, on what they would do if all hell breaks lose in Iraq upon their election or the beginning of their planned withdrawals.
What needs to be noted here, though, is the reason the debate was the way it was. Stephanapolous makes clear why: We had to focus on electability, he said. That’s what’s hot now, he said. That’s why he had to keep asking about the personal faults the Republicans might exploit.
That seems odd, whether one accepts the premises of this blog or not. Who SAYS the journalists must focus on electability? Is there any indication that the voters have been voting on that basis? Why shouldn’t the media be more concerned with the nation’s problems than the Democrats’?
At any rate, if Mr. S understood the points this blog is trying to demonstrate to him and his political/journalistic circles, he wouldn’t be under the delusion that the November election outcome might have been determined when Obama fretted about small-town Pennsylvania voters being so “bitter” as to vote against him.
It’s just one of those flaps. By November, they all wash out. All the candidates’ flaws and strengths are out there by then for everybody to see, and all the candidates start looking seriously flawed — and seriously capable. At that point voters move on to other concerns.
Understanding this dynamic is important, not merely because it’s true — not merely on the general principle about the truth setting us free — but because it matters. Ignorance of the basic nature of our elections shapes behavior, especially media behavior.
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