One of the interesting subthemes of the post-ABC debate commentary has been that folks who disliked the debate simply hated it because they're in the tank for Obama. In some cases that may be true. It doesn't, however, invalidate the fact that, as Nico Pitney demonstrates, this debate simply had a tremendously high proportion of "scandal" questions as compared to other debates. You're welcome to check his work and try to prove it wrong, but as someone paid to watch and read these things, it tracks my impressions pretty closely. The next question, then, is whether gaffes and smears really do deserve the first hour of a presidential debate. I'd argue no; such a formate conveys a strong suggestion that these really are the central questions of the race and the proper issues on which for voters to make their decisions, which is not something that many journalists or observers would agree with. Ross Douthat, however, counters, "I don't think these topics matter just because they’re 'symbolic'; I think they matter because they’re personal, because they tell us something (or seem to tell us something) about the psychology of the person we're being asked to vote for." Ross goes on to argue that we're electing a human being, and attempting to gain insight into their personality is entirely legitimate. I agree with that. But is forcing Obama to defend vague associations with an English teacher who was once a radical leftie, or demanding that Clinton answer how she misremembered a decades-old trip to Kosovo, really giving us insight into the personalities of the candidates? It's hard for me to imagine getting to know someone that way. When people come to my house for party and I want learn a bit about them, I don't dig up some dirt and then confront the guest with accusations of past infidelity. But I recognize the power of Douthat's point. A "soft" debate that really does focus on personality would be useful. Let some smart folks sit in a room and come up with questions that will allow the candidates to go off-message in illuminating, rather than confrontational, ways. Ask Clinton about her trajectory from Goldwater Girl to Wellesley radical, ask Obama about his lessons from working at an investment bank in New York, ask both for the last fiction book they read. Let them talk about an intellectual passion that's unrelated to politics, or a beloved hobby that frees them from the tensions of the trail. Ask them about bad bosses from their past, and what management lessons they took from the experience. Ask what they'd major in in colelge if they could go back and do it again. I'd be interested in this sort of debate, which really could provide a glimpse into personalities that, for all their fame and visibility, remain relatively opaque. But this stuff about Ayers and Bittergate and Tuzla and flag pins is not a worthy substitute. It tells us much more about our media, and their appetite for scandal, than it does abut the candidates.
