{"id":11435,"date":"2015-10-29T03:06:59","date_gmt":"2015-10-29T03:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=11435"},"modified":"2015-10-29T03:08:19","modified_gmt":"2015-10-29T03:08:19","slug":"political-debates-become-show-biz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=11435","title":{"rendered":"Political ‘debates’ become show biz"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

\"CNBC<\/a><\/p>\n

I might have a solution to returning some decorum and dignity to these presidential joint appearances.<\/p>\n

I’ve said it before: Get rid of the audience.<\/p>\n

CNBC’s moderators became the target<\/a>\u00a0of many of the Republicans running for president at tonight’s so-called debate.<\/p>\n

First of all, I concur that the moderators were terrible. They lost control of the event. They let the proverbial tail wag the dog — to borrow a political phrase.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the candidates fed off the crowd that gathered at the University of Colorado in Boulder. They cheered ’em on. They provoked the zingers. They roared every time a candidate took a shot at the “mainstream media.”<\/p>\n

Tonight’s GOP joint appearance lacked almost any semblance of dignity. It became a circus and the moderators — Becky Quick, John Harwood and Carl Quintanilla — became the ringmasters.<\/p>\n

It’s not as though the questioners didn’t ask good questions. They sought to probe the candidates’ backgrounds, prod them to explain previous statements and provoke them to make memorable statements.<\/p>\n

It seemed, though, that CNBC debate troika set themselves up to become as much a part of the story as the candidates.<\/p>\n

Why is that? The moderators were fueled as much by the audience as the candidates.<\/p>\n

I have an intense dislike for what these events have\u00a0 become.<\/p>\n

Both parties have become enamored of the entertainment value that the audiences bring to these confrontations.<\/p>\n

I’m old enough to remember the very first televised presidential debates, involving Republican Richard Nixon and Democrat John F. Kennedy. They had three of them. Each one got a little more vigorous than the preceding encounter.<\/p>\n

Audiences? None. Just the two men … and Americans learned a lot from them both, without the distraction created by the cheers and catcalls.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I might have a solution to returning some decorum and dignity to these presidential joint appearances. I’ve said it before: Get rid of the audience. CNBC’s moderators became the target\u00a0of many of the Republicans running for president at tonight’s so-called debate. First of all, I concur that the moderators were terrible. They lost control of … Continue reading Political ‘debates’ become show biz<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[1042,2460,2858,3715,3940],"class_list":["post-11435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-cnbc","tag-jfk","tag-mainstream-media","tag-presidential-debates","tag-richard-nixon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11435"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11439,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11435\/revisions\/11439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}