Great Debates
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007Did you see the story in the News Journal about the lack of public interest in a new Governor? What amazes me is there are, for the time being, four candidates listed and a pair of them have 50 or more percent unknown status and these people have prior experience campaigning for statewide office. This in a state no wider in most places east to west than Manhattan is long from north to south. And with a much smaller population base than the big city up north. You can easily dismiss all of this by arguing the real campaign is months away.  Or so you could but as mentioned some of these folks have campaigned before and campaigned statewide.
I’m a talk show host. It’s my judgment to withhold on the campaigners until after the new-year and election season really gets to rolling. Now I’m having some second thoughts. Delaware doesn’t have a large concentration of news media. Daily newspapers are few and one of the benefits of a newspaper versus the web, and this is anecdotal, is that people more thoroughly read a paper than its companion website. You needn’t point and click because another story to the right catches the eyes as you flip a page. Television coverage has its own limitations. While not getting ink all over your fingers it’s also easier to set back and occasionally click a remote than to lean forward and constantly click a mouse. Yet is it a surprise to any of you that TV stations don’t have massive teams of beat reporters chasing politicians across the 2 to 3 states the local affiliates are serving?Â
Last night I watched the late newscasts and made a few observations. TV news is pretty much the same in Baltimore as in Salisbury as in Philadelphia. Pictures of crime and accident scenes and sound bites with police officers and pretty young ladies tying it all together before the weather are the staples of television. Honestly, there isn’t room in 30 to 35 minutes to adequately cover campaign issues.
I don’t have all the answers but I’ve got some proposals. A few crossed my mind Sunday morning as I listened to an interview one of my coworkers did with a newsmaker. First, and there must be a groundswell of interest from the public in advance, I propose radio debates. Not ordinary radio debates. What I’m conjuring is a two hour give and take between candidates with no moderator. First between primary candidates and then between party nominees and borrowing from a proposal Newt Gingrich has made for national debates it’s my desire that each candidate be required to say something nice about the opposition.  Not a comment about the selection of a tie or hairdresser but to say there may be some merit to at least one idea the other side offers.Â
This initial conversation will be criticized if one strong personality dominates. So be it. Sometimes as citizens it’s what we’re looking for. It’s also only a start. There would be another series of one hour discussions. There would be a moderator but each discussion covers but one topic. At the moment I’m considering 4 debates in this format. One would consider power generation and energy issues while another can ponder healthcare solutions. Housing and development could well be number three and there are numerous topics vying for chat number four. You get the idea. Moderators would be selected from a panel nominated by the state’s media outlets. Candidates won’t be granted veto power when it comes to selection of moderators. You agree to the terms or 53 percent of folks polled can go on not knowing your name. It’s the candidate’s choice to bow out but this will be very much noted by the hosts.
These ideas are for circulation. If there is a great interest I’ll present a more detailed plan to my handlers. As well as to Delaware’s combined media for a consensus and possible modifications and with a specific set of requests for my peers. No debate coverage will reference frontrunners and no winners or losers will be declared. After all, how can you even measure a subjective judgment? Leave it to the voters.Â
 




