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Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Should presidential debates be livelier?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
According to Gillian Silverman, an assistant professor of English at the University of Colorado Denver, election debates have not always been the genteel affairs we have seen in recent weeks.
In an opinion column in the Los Angeles Times, Silverman writes: “Running for the Senate 150 years ago, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas faced off in a series of seven debates across Illinois, remembered to this day as among the most important in U.S. history. Each spoke in the open air for a total of 90 minutes, with no amplification to be heard above the jeering crowds.
“The mass of spectators — as many as 20,000 at the first debate in Ottawa — responded to the orators as if they were prizefighters, urging their candidate to ‘hit him again,’ ‘stick it to him,’ ‘don’t spare him.’ According to historian Harold Holzer, Douglas supporters even brought a brass cannon that they set off after he delivered an especially good verbal blow.”
Silverman concludes: “If America really wants an energized electorate, we should embrace the real legacy of Lincoln-Douglas. Brokaw moderating a staged “town hall” — with its carefully selected audience and civil Q&A — is not enough. What’s needed is an unpredictable and raucous environment that forces the candidates to respond extemporaneously to the audience as well as to each other. This might not dignify the debates, but it would do much to bring Americans back to an experience of politics as participatory, communal and fun.”
What do you think of the presidential debate formats thus far and how would you improve them for 2012?
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