Hoopla at Hoftstra

Did you watch the debate last night? The whole shebang. It seemed to go on forever. Like the previous three. There was plenty of tension, but not much satisfaction. Both candidates were given more than enough time to answer questions, and both seemed to feel a need to fill that time.

Here’s how it should have been handled. You give each candidate a certain amount of time. I suggest that everything covered last night could easily have been dealt with in an hour instead of 90 minutes. So let’s say each candidate would get 25 minutes, and the other ten minutes would be used by the moderator to say hello and goodbye and ask questions in between. (Of course, Tom Brokaw wouldn’t be able to hold himself to such a reasonable time limit, but that’s another story.)

The candidates then would get to use their 25 minutes any way they saw fit. Like chess players, they would make their move, they would hit the clock, starting the other guy’s turn. That would encourage the candidates to be terse, instead of pontificating, reciting memorized lines, or simply rambling to make sure they didn’t not use their allotted time.

At the risk of repeating what must be the popular palaver the day after, the “Joe the Plumber” line was done to death. McCain fled to Joe, not quite as many times as he used the term “My friends” in the previous debate, but almost. I don’t think the man hears himself. With all due respect, his mind seems not to be very sharp. As much as I might criticize Obama’s rhetorical style – and particularly his smiling; there was nothing funny about the debate – McCain reminded me of an old dog that can no longer scratch its fleas.

The snap polls seemed to reflect the same debate we saw. It’s encouraging that flummery did not triumph over the suggestion of the possibility of real change.

 

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