As Pundits Ask, “Who Won the Debates?” We Say, “Wrong Question”

What in fact does this question even mean? Is the “winner” the candidate who scores the most memorable “debate” points, who is quickest on their feet, or who creates the most repeatable sound bites? All of this would make for good television if the debates were a sporting event. But they aren’t. We should ask for more. Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

Unfortunately, the modern marriage of journalism and media-as-entertainment results in a loss for all of us. The so-called debates are more akin to speed dating—meant to entertain more than they are to inform. Candidates arrive with prepared sound bites hoping for some kind of breakout, and the ratings-driven media accommodates with non-substantive formats, requests for one-word answers, shows of hands, and other techniques that demean the process and preclude serious discussion. They then pronounce winners and losers based on their own entertainment standards. And the public loses.

The only winner of this tortured process ought in fact to be the public. And the only standard by which their “win” should be measured is whether or not they leave the session better informed. Take the first debate as a case in point. Kamala Harris was widely anointed the “winner” based on her well planned but wholly duplicitous attack on Joe Biden. Biden, the clear “loser,” was thought to be profoundly wounded, due to his flat-footed response. Speculation ensued about his fitness for office, and Harris’s star rose. Next news cycle please.

Let’s get this straight. Harris attacked Biden for opposing a policy (federally mandated busing) that she herself, when pressed, does not support. (Nor do most Americans, we might add.) And we are to believe that this behavior on her part is indicative of presidential qualifications? And that how one reacts when surprised by an incoherent attack is also indicative of presidential potential? We think not. 

As often in life, the talent needed to get a job is not necessarily the talent necessary to do it or keep it. Unless the media begins to act more like the journalists they claim to be and provide a sounder analysis of who demonstrates the qualifications necessary to actually succeed as president, we will be left to determine who can do so without them.