Tuesday, October 7, 2008 @ 9pm EDT
Belmont University’s Curb Event Center in Nashville, Tennessee.
Moderated by NBC’s Tom Brokaw
Live Streams:
http://www.hulu.com/spotlight/election08
News & pre-debate analysis:
In second McCain-Obama debate, the voters take control CNN: McCain vs Obama: Round Two
Newsday: 5 things Obama, McCain must do at Tuesday’s debate
Not a showdown, it’s a glorified press conference. They know the questions, no follow ups and they can’t ask each other things.
Wait, they got the questions before hand???
They are questions from the audience, that had to be pre-approved. They’ll be the standard questions they always get and they’ll have a nice script to follow for each of them.
Moderator can’t change questions, can’t ask follow ups, can’t do shit. They just recite one answer after the other.
This is make or break for McCain. The outcome of this determines if he has a shot at the White House or if he’s a footnote in the Obama Presidency.
The candidates don’t know the questions.
I like this format, remember, this is the one that horribly tripped up Bush Sr. and made Clinton connect with the real “regular joes” of the country …
The questions are known and approved by Brokaw, obviously, but I don’t see any indication that the campaigns have advance knowledge of the specific questions. Correct me if I’m wrong, though.
this is BS. No follow ups? No asking questions? This will just be a parade of talking points once again.
You could really learn from the European model here (or at least the French and Danish way).
From Electoral-Vote.com
Quote:
| Town Hall Event Rules The Obama-McCain event tonight consists of two parallel press conferences that happen to be in the same room. The detailed rules hammered out by the two campaigns state that the questions were to have been submitted in advance by the audience members and over the Internet. The questioner may not change the question and the microphone will be cut off after the question. Neither the questioner nor the moderator, Tom Brokaw of NBC, may ask followup questions. The candidates may not question each other. There will be no debate at all. Who does this format favor? Probably neither candidate. Usually the questions the general public asks aren’t very hard, are largely predictable in advance, and have already been asked 100 times ("how will you fix the economy?"Wink. The candidates have stock answers they will reel of |
They don’t know them specifically, but really what shocker of a question will come from Joe Six-Pack?
Wow, that’s disappointing.
Quote:
| Originally Posted by ElCapitanAmerica View Post The candidates don’t know the questions. I like this format, remember, this is the one that horribly tripped up Bush Sr. and made Clinton connect with the real “regular joes” of the country … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ffbFvKlWqE |
But as tonight’s debate is described it is not even close to the format we see in that Youtube link. Here the woman gets to follow up on her question and force Bush to answer even as he was on his way to one of his talking points, and the camera focuses on her and her reaction and the microphone is most certainly not turned off.
They should have allowed the moderator to follow up, a shame this is what the campaigns agreed to.
However, I doubt they will really not be able to address each other. If one of the candidates ask the other something, it will look really bad if they don’t respond, even if Brokaw admonishes them (which he could just ignore).
Quote:
| Originally Posted by Tati View Post From Electoral-Vote.com They don’t know them specifically, but really what shocker of a question will come from Joe Six-Pack? |
Well, what shocker of a question shows up in any debate, ever? Of course the questions have to be pre-approved by the moderator. The disappointment here is that no follow-ups are allowed, not that the candidates can probably anticipate the subjects of most of the questions.
A debate with no actual debating, great.
Nice to see people genuinely disappointed in the format though.
To be honest, if you’re pulling for Obama, the more restrictive and “safer” the debate at this point, the better.
So, Brokaw’s entire role in this is to choose which questions will be asked? And tonight all he’ll do is introduce the questioners? Cripes, he could take the night off and let Seacrest handle the actual show. This is going to be a dull, dull affair.
I agree, how is this a debate?
Hulu will stream the debate live here;
http://www.hulu.com/spotlight/election08
I guess the McCain campaign clearly realized how badly their candidate doesn’t want to address (much less acknowledge) his opponent.
I wonder if McCain took the criticism of his first debate to heart and intends to stare at Obama every time he answers?
I think this format helps McCain because every time McCain interacts with Press or Obama he visibly has trouble controlling his temper. Obama sometimes pauses and stutters when he gets unexpected questions, but he keeps his cool.
I’m hoping for a complete McCain meltdown on camera before this election is over.