By Todd Lassa
While few pundits credit the first presidential debate of the season Tuesday night with edifying viewers on the positions and policy proposals of either President Donald J. Trump or former Vice President Joseph Biden, the hand-wringing of that inauspicious verbal battle has sucked all the political air out of the entire week.
We – as editors and as a nation – are still asking what should be done about the debate that had future PTSD victim Chris Wallace, of Fox News, trying everything he could to claw back control of the 90-minute debacle. The next day, the Commission for Presidential Debates issued a statement announcing it would make running changes for the two remaining presidential wrestling matches, as well as next week’s debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).
“Last night’s debate made clear that additional structure should be added to the format of the remaining debates to ensure more orderly discussion of the issues,” CPD’s statement said. “The CPD will be carefully considering the changes that it will adopt and will announce the measures shortly.”
In the center column of Wednesday’s issue of The Hustings, we suggested perhaps a mic cutoff switch for the moderator, although moderators would still have trouble moderating as they would still hear the two candidates trying to talk over each other.
Perhaps make Trump and Biden sit in electrified chairs, and give the moderator a buzzer-switch? Many immediately called for cancelling the remainder of the reality TV series’ season.
The remaining debates are Oct. 7 [the only vice presidential debate among the four scheduled] at the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, moderated by USA Today’s Susan Page; an Oct. 15 Town Hall Meeting [a format some pundits expect will reel in Trump and Biden as they take questions from citizens] at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, moderated by the C-SPAN Networks’ Steve Scully, and Oct. 22 at Belmont University in Nashville, moderated by NBC News’ Kristen Welker.
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