The 2016 Election looks to be even less a ‘contest of ideas’
than a ‘marketplace of fear’. While there are three debates scheduled (but not
guaranteed) between the Presidential candidates we may see an embarrassing illustration
of current American politics, even if they simply continue the disappointing
experiences of the last several presidential elections. Under the prevailing
methods and conditions these debates will likely be ineffective in providing any
meaningful examination of national issues or policy; but under these conditions
we can expect that they will likely manage to achieve a new low in modern
American politics.
One of the causal factors that produces this sorry state and
outlook is that current political debates are controlled and managed by the
political parties to prevent the public from any substantive view of their
respective candidates. This has allowed the parties to twist and contort the
objectives of the debates to be
opportunities for ‘yet another’ series of campaign sound-bite. This may be a
disservice to the voters but that is not a concern of the parties.
To restore the intended purpose and value of American
political debates or to actually improve the value of political debates there
is a way for a candidate, party, news-media entity, or even other
public/private organizations to uses a modern, innovative debate format that political
parties can’t control except for the information that they provide which often
is the very thing that they were trying to avoid. Today’s technology allows not
just the politicians and parties to direct and control their messages but
allows others to impose a political and public accountability to those seeking
the voters’ decision to elect them.
The new debate format is designed
to be unconstrained in time (when it occurs), space (how much support information
can be provided beyond the basic answer’s statement), number (no fixed agreement
by the parties is required), topics (subjects are not approved by candidates),
or required coordination of schedules. In essence the new format allows for a
topic to be examined and compared between candidates so that the public can get
an answer to the questions asked and not an answer to a topic that the
candidate wanted the question to be about. Additionally, this format provides
for a simple and direct method for knowledgeable ‘experts’ to provide assessments
on the content of an answer, including any political orientation that the
subject-matter experts might have.
Since a scheduled debate isn’t
required a candidate or party can’t say that their schedule and commitments don’t
allow them to engage on the topics, because their ability to respond is under
their own control; and if they can’t manage to provide a response, what does that
indicate about their campaign’s/candidate’s understanding of an issue and
competency in addressing it?
The debate format is a web-based
methodology that presents issues, questions, answers, comparisons, assessments,
and follow-ups and rebuttals. Each of these elements of the new methodology is asynchronous.
An issue is identified and posted on the sponsoring web-site. Initial questions
on the issue are sent to the campaigns and posted on the web-site with a “Responses
Due By:” date. On the “Due By” date the answers are posted.
The responses can be evaluated
by selected groups of individuals who have a designated “subject matter
expertise” (SME) relevant to the topic under debate. This group would prepare
any follow-up questions that were deemed appropriate to get a better
understanding of the meaning, position and policy indicated in the response.
The follow-up questions would be posted and sent to the campaigns to be
answered by another Due By date. The campaigns would be informed that they can
provide any rebuttal statements to their opponent’s answers that they would
like to have incorporated into their answers on the issue.
The SMEs would incorporate the
follow-up responses in their evaluations, including any rebuttal information,
and provide their analysis and summary of the response on the issue. The
assessments and summaries would be posted on the web-site’s pages for this
issue.
This process can be repeated for
each issue that is to be raised. This allows the debate to occur over weeks
rather than constrained to just a few hours that can’t cover more than just a
few issues.
Moving political debates on
relevant national issues to the internet puts the information that a candidate
or party is offering as their rationale for voters to choose their visions
enables the voters to acquire answers to questions that are important to them.
It also provides a channel where voters may see information about issues that
they hadn’t paid much attention to heretofore. “An informed public” may not be
just a necessary condition for a democracy but could actually become an
attainable goal.
