Moderator-In-Chief

The criticisms that the moderators in the presidential debates are not doing their jobs in an appropriate manner are absolutely correct; however the criticisms are also absolutely wrong. Now don’t be confused; this is not a logic problem, a final exam question on a philosophy final or some thorny conundrum intended to challenge your intellect. It is a critique of those who have the presumption to speak on behalf of the public’s interests. This is an assay on the quality and grade of those who are without any basis for representing the public and without any measureable insight into what would benefit the public. Their views are that the moderator is there to be uninvolved and merely ask the questions, monitor the equality of time between the candidates and provide some limited supervision that the candidates follow the rules. This may be what the candidates and the parties view as the role that they want for the moderator, but it isn’t what is good for the public. This limited, lame and lackluster perspective doesn’t even attempt to see the value, the potential and the opportunity that a moderator who served the public interests could provide.

What the public needs, what the public deserves and what the public should demand of “their” moderator is far more than these seekers who want to be the “servant of the people” will like or find comfortable. However, how comfortable do you think I care they are with the questions or the demands to which “my moderator” will hold them accountable?

The moderator should be prepared to not just ask the questions, but to assess and determine during the candidates response if they are even coming close to answering the question which more often than not they rarely do. In these circumstances the moderator should stop the candidates’s rambling and direct them to answering the question asked. If the answer is not forthcoming the moderator should terminate the candidate’s response period and move on the next item or candidate if they haven’t had a chance to not answer the question also.

If the moderator determines that the answer was non-substantive, they would be expected to follow-up with a restatement of the question along the lines of “Could you perhaps provide something of substance that would inform the public as you prior answer did not? A simple no would be adequate if you can’t.” The mode of moderating provides the means for the public to receive information related to what they are interested in relative to the questions, rather than what the candidates are interested in telling the public.

So rather than constraining and limiting the role of the moderator, their role should be strengthened and broadened to allow them to make the debates more focused on increasing the information that the public would benefit from obtaining. We have allowed the debates to become just another reality show, a scripted show and tell, and an exercise in evasion and confusion. You would think that candidates for the presidency would themselves demand a higher standard, an opportunity to lead, and a venue for enlightening their path to the future; but oddly the contenders for the ‘leader of the free world’ position are willing to follow their uninspired advisors, their handlers and consultants on how not to be a leader.

Such debates might be more difficult to get the candidates to agree to, but then the moderator has been given an excellent solution to that problem by Clint Eastwood.