magnolialover
06-05-2007, 05:39 PM
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/05/nh.gop.debate/index.html
I watched just a small part of this before I had to turn it off. I was checking out the audience "question and answer" session. Which was hilarious, mostly because they screened the questions beforehand, and anyone who wanted to ask questions had to be a republican, or an independent. What should happen, in both dem and republican debates is that they should let people from the opposite side ask actual hard questions, and don't let them squirm out of the question without actually answering the question.
For instance, in just about every question asked by the audience members this evening, the standard answer was "the free market will fix everything". I'm paraphrasing of course, but it seemed like they trotted out that old nugget time and again about, well, everything, even where not applicable.
When can we have a real debate? When can real questions be asked? Not softballs by people sympathetic, or empathetic to the candidates. Then again, I know no candidate would actually take part in something like this where they would actually have to answer questions instead of re-hashing their stump speech in answer form.
These early debates are very useless, and the later debates, even more useless at this point in time I think.
I watched just a small part of this before I had to turn it off. I was checking out the audience "question and answer" session. Which was hilarious, mostly because they screened the questions beforehand, and anyone who wanted to ask questions had to be a republican, or an independent. What should happen, in both dem and republican debates is that they should let people from the opposite side ask actual hard questions, and don't let them squirm out of the question without actually answering the question.
For instance, in just about every question asked by the audience members this evening, the standard answer was "the free market will fix everything". I'm paraphrasing of course, but it seemed like they trotted out that old nugget time and again about, well, everything, even where not applicable.
When can we have a real debate? When can real questions be asked? Not softballs by people sympathetic, or empathetic to the candidates. Then again, I know no candidate would actually take part in something like this where they would actually have to answer questions instead of re-hashing their stump speech in answer form.
These early debates are very useless, and the later debates, even more useless at this point in time I think.