Wrong. Right. If you assume Jeb's candidacy is finished and if Rubio doesn't implode, he's got this thing in the bag. However, if Rubio eventually falters, uh oh. Trump and Carson will be dead meat after Iowa. Maybe before.
Media does that to both side though - it's not a bias in the media, it's the fact that humanity is flawed and cares more about zingers than substance.
This is precisely true. I'm very interested in the rumored "structure change" that the GOP is apparently going to push for. Typical question: "Your tax plan would allow Mitt Romney to deduct the expenses for grooming his horse but not allow a single mother to deduct the cost of childcare. Why is this fair? 30 seconds, GO!" That question is awful, the response time is awful and they are forced to answer to emotional gotchas instead of explaining themselves. A better format would be: "You have 3 minutes of uninterrupted time. Please explain your proposed tax plan, how it would benefit Americans individually and the economy at large." Then let them sink or swim on explaining policy. It's not entertaining television of course, but it would give us a better opportunity to actually hear a candidate tell us their vision for their presidency. Instead, debates on both sides are designed to see who can deliver a punch at the right time, with the right amount of energy and who handled being criticized with the most flair. I will say that I think Anderson Cooper has done the best job thus far on questions. But even the CNN debate for the democrats had the same type of stupid question. "Do black lives matter do all lives matter?" That question is a trap question when posed that way which is precisely why it was done. Not a single candidate that was on that stage doesn't actually believe that all lives matter, but they couldn't answer it that which plays directly into gotcha media narratives.
true. It's more pronounced in a wide open field. Also a group that's quite happy destroying each other, as compared to the Democrats this time around where Bernie has accepted his role as a sparing partner for Hillary to prep, but not hurt, her later campaign. And I disagree with you about 'humanity.' We consume the media we're given. The fluff is fun (?) and cheap and easy to produce. People would understand the more substantive stuff if intelligently produced. But it's hard and expensive to do that. edit -- justxy articulated the gotcha aspect better than i did.
As I said in the Benghazi thread: I would love to see each candidate sit down and spend 10 hours answering questions how they would run the country. Each candidate would have their own day. No one else there.
someone has had enough of this ****: Springtime for Grifters OCT. 30, 2015 Paul Krugman At one point during Wednesday’s Republican debate, Ben Carson was asked about his involvement with Mannatech, a nutritional supplements company that makes outlandish claims about its products and has been forced to pay $7 million to settle a deceptive-practices lawsuit. The audience booed, and Mr. Carson denied being involved with the company. Both reactions tell you a lot about the driving forces behind modern American politics. As it happens, Mr. Carson lied. He has indeed been deeply involved with Mannatech, and has done a lot to help promote its merchandise. PolitiFact quickly rated his claim false, without qualification. But the Republican base doesn’t want to hear about it, and the candidate apparently believes, probably correctly, that he can simply brazen it out. These days, in his party, being an obvious grifter isn’t a liability, and may even be an asset. And this doesn’t just go for outsider candidates like Mr. Carson and Donald Trump. Insider politicians like Marco Rubio are simply engaged in a different, classier kind of scam — and they are empowered in part by the way the grifters have defined respectability down. About the grifters: Start with the lowest level, in which marketers use political affinity to sell get-rich-quick schemes, miracle cures, and suchlike. That’s the Carson phenomenon, and it’s just the latest example of a long tradition. As the historian Rick Perlstein documents, a “strategic alliance of snake-oil vendors and conservative true believers” goes back half a century. Direct-mail marketing using addresses culled from political campaigns has given way to email, but the game remains the same. At a somewhat higher level are marketing campaigns more or less tied to what purports to be policy analysis. Right-wing warnings of imminent hyperinflation, coupled with demands that we return to the gold standard, were fanned by media figures like Glenn Beck, who used his show to promote Goldline, a firm selling gold coins and bars at, um, inflated prices. Sure enough, Mr. Beck has been a vocal backer of Ted Cruz, who has made a return to gold one of his signature policy positions. Oh, and former Congressman Ron Paul, who has spent decades warning of runaway inflation and is undaunted by its failure to materialize, is very much in the business of selling books and videos showing how you, too, can protect yourself from the coming financial disaster. At a higher level still are operations that are in principle engaging in political activity, but mainly seem to be generating income for their organizers. Last week The Times published an investigative report on some political action committees raising money in the name of anti-establishment conservative causes. The report found that the bulk of the money these PACs raise ends up going to cover administrative costs and consultants’ fees, very little to their ostensible purpose. For example, only 14 percent of what the Tea Party Leadership Fund spends is “candidate focused.” You might think that such revelations would be politically devastating. But the targets of such schemes know, just know, that the liberal mainstream media can’t be trusted, that when it reports negative stories about conservative heroes it’s just out to suppress people who are telling the real truth. It’s a closed information loop, and can’t be broken. And a lot of people live inside that closed loop. Current estimates say that Mr. Carson, Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz together have the support of around 60 percent of Republican voters. Furthermore, the success of the grifters has a profound effect on the whole party. As I said, it defines respectability down. Consider Mr. Rubio, who has emerged as the leading conventional candidate thanks to Jeb Bush’s utter haplessness. There was a time when Mr. Rubio’s insistence that $6 trillion in tax cuts would somehow pay for themselves would have marked him as deeply unserious, especially given the way his party has been harping on the evils of budget deficits. Even George W. Bush, during the 2000 campaign, at least pretended to be engaged in conventional budgeting, handing back part of a projected budget surplus. But the Republican base doesn’t care what the mainstream media says. Indeed, after Wednesday’s debate the Internet was full of claims that John Harwood, one of the moderators, lied about Mr. Rubio’s tax plan. (He didn’t.) And in any case, Mr. Rubio sounds sensible compared to the likes of Mr. Carson and Mr. Trump. So there’s no penalty for his fiscal fantasies. The point is that we shouldn’t ask whether the G.O.P. will eventually nominate someone in the habit of saying things that are demonstrably untrue, and counting on political loyalists not to notice. The only question is what kind of scam it will be.
I think that's a fair question that if a candidate had really thought about their position would be able to answer. As a politician articulating things succinctly is a key skill, but not in 30 seconds I agree. I don't think the format is the issue. I think both the media and the politicians cow-tow to what works with the masses. Look at this BBS - people complain or talk about how boring or exciting a debate was - not substance. We are a culture - a global culture - of style over substance. If the debates are not entertaining, they might as well be on CSPAN as no one will watch. Media companies need rating. Politicians need memorable moments and large audiences. They are in synergy as much as they are in conflict. What amazes me is that no one has explained that all "black lives matter" mean is that "black lives matter too" but that sounds less catchy. People are debating a freaking tagline. It's both hilarious and sad. Proof that everyone - the public, the media, and politicians are complicit in putting style and semantics above substance. In this day and age - we consume the media that fits our values and that we're comfortable with. You have a choice across the spectrum of what you want to consume. And people now exercise that choice - and unlike before - they no longer hear the other perspectives. The great irony of the digital age is that despite their being more POV's and sources of info, people are becoming more polarized as it merely allows them to have more and more tunnel vision.
I agree with everything Krugman says here about the GOP. However, does he have similar pieces for all the scam artists in the Democratic party -- because it is very much applicable to many of their candidates and leaders as well (I ask this question sincerely, I don't follow Krugman's work at all)
I'm going to strongly disagree with your examples (and subsequent assessment) of questions. What you consider a "gotcha" question is what I consider a substantial question. The vetting process should not just be about allowing candidates to wax poetically about building the economy and promoting family values. Certainly, the voters should be provided with a sense of the candidates' macro-vision of their potential administration, but then there also needs to be a laser focus on the details that don't vibe with that macro-vision. That's the purpose of a question like the horse grooming/childcare hypothetical that you denigrated. Broad questions like "please explain your tax plan in 3 minutes" will only produce 3 minutes (or 5 minutes or 10 minutes) of broad platitudes. We get enough of that crap already from all politicians. Now your question might work if the respondent had 20-30 minutes to break it all down, but that would make the debates untenably long and frankly, that's the kind of explanation that works best as a video or text on the candidate's web page. There are potentially legitimate and acceptable responses to either of your examples (horse grooming and Black Lives Matter) of "gotcha" questions. For the first one, perhaps childcare is covered under a broader deduction category while horse grooming deduction is only applicable for horses used for racing (which provides a significant economic boost to the economy of the candidate's state). For the second one, I might answer "both are true - all lives matter is the ideal we're striving for, but in the current context, black lives mater is a reminder that African Americans often face severely disparate treatment from law enforcement and society at large and that such disparate treatment is at odds with our supposition that all lives should matter." I admit that the framing of these gotcha questions is often snarky and even mean-spirited, but a capable candidate should be able to handle them because they're rarely completely out of left field. A wealthy candidate who's cutting taxes (or maintaining tax cuts) for the wealthy should expect to answer questions like the horse grooming one and be prepared. How he (or she) responds tells me as much about him as does his less specific statements.
This is never going to happen becuase debates are not for explaining policy, because people don't want to hear or understand policy. This is particularly true of the GOP debate audience in which all sorts of fringe non-factual beliefs are overrepresented (the know-nothingism that is sadly prevalent today). If people wanted to hear or understand policy they would be reading Elizabeth Warren's academic papers or books, but that's not what makes her popular among the left, it's when she puts those things in terms of a story that people can understand (the rich are screwing you).
I didn't see it because of the Rockets game but I assume it was just back and forth personal attacks amongst lowly uneducated, boring, run of the mill Republican candidates. I bet there was no character, charisma, passion which are integral components of a strong Democratic debate
I don't know about marking scam artists, but Krugman has historically been a very, very harsh critic of the Democratic Party, which he considers largely spineless. He has pretty much been a thorn in Obama's side since day one of this presidency. He doesn't engage in tit for tat as in, "if I say this about party A, must make an equal claim about party B" -- which is a very poor pattern of false equivocation all too common in our media. From what I have seen, he just calls it as he sees it, right or wrong. But for sure, he sees different issues plaguing each party along side problems both parties suffer.
lol, they get what they deserve. The way the moderators acted was totally ridiculous and quite childish. The Republicans have already pulled the debate from NBC because of this.
The problem here is that you need the candidates to agree to the general format - and I'm not sure there's any way that the non-substance-based campaigns like Trump and Carson would do so. Given those two command 50% of the vote right now, the GOP probably needs their acceptance of any format they choose.
it looks like a clown show to me. and chances are they will go down in flames with some type of palin esque meltdown at some point. i don't mean necessarily a candidate like palin, but more some type of screw up from the weird organism that the R party has turned into.
They moved from NBC to a more appropriate venue, Barnum and Bailey. Clown noses and make up will be provided at no additional charge.
