The First Democratic Primary Debate: A Poor Format Wrecked the Debate

I began to study communication many decades ago because I love debating. I was on my high school and college debate teams and worked as a college debate coach for many years. Bad debating irritates me. Last night's Democratic primary debate was pretty much a mess, not so much because of the candidates, but because the debate format was unwieldy and the moderators didn't know their job. That's why the public got only a shallow idea about what the candidates believed.

Let's travel back in time to a simple Greek idea called dialectic. In dialectic, two sides debate by strict rules. Both sides get the same chances to ask questions and speak. Each debater gets a chance to answer the debater who spoke before. Dia means two, and lectic means words. Thus, two sides going back and forth with words. Easy enough. A dialectic uses procedures and rules to make sure that the debate is fair. If the debate is fair, we hope that truth will win. If the debate doesn't follow rules and is unfair, truth doesn't have a prayer.

First, everybody knows that there were too many candidates on stage. Ten of them, not just two. Most
of them said about the same things. Even if the moderators had done their job, the debate did not allow enough time for all of the candidates to have enough time.

I'm just a retired debate coach and I can't fix that. Only the Democratic Party can fix that.

Second, although the moderators started out by saying that they wanted to treat everybody the same and give everyone the same amount of time, they didn't do it. Jose Diaz-Balart, one of the many moderators, made this nice promise: "The candidates will have 60 seconds to answer and 30 seconds for any follow-ups." Moderator Lester Holt than said, "We are not going to be shy about making sure that candidates stick to time tonight."

Good luck with that! Didn't happen.

When it was all over, political scientist Nate Silver's excellent Five Thirty Eight team looked at how many words each person spoke in the debate. What they learned was spooky! They said:

"Speaking time – measured here by words spoken by each candidate – wasn't equally distributed across the candidates. It was moderately correlated with candidates' polling averages (R=.55), though candidates like Booker, O'Rourke, Klobuchar and Castro spoke a lot relative to their standing in the polls. Warren, who was the polling leader on stage Wednesday night, got fewer words in than her standing would imply."

Oops. Warning! Warning! Dialectical failure! And the differences were big:

• Cory Booker got to say 2181 words. 

• Beto O'Rourke got 1932 words. 

• But Jay Inslee (poor guy) only got 875 words. 

• Chuck Todd, a moderator, spoke 1633 words, more than all but three of the candidates! Sounds like an ego problem, doesn't it? He stole a few minutes of speaking time that belonged to the candidates.

I'm disappointed but not surprised that Elizabeth Warren spoke fewer words (1637) than two of the men who polled below her. The press is consistently under-reporting the female Democratic candidates, as if they only have enough juice in their ears to hear one woman at a time. It was sad to hear that happen in a supposedly fair debate.

Given the unfortunate bias in speaking time, candidates who polled low got unfairly short speaking time and thus have no chance to catch up. That isn't dialectical.

Despite his promise, moderator Lester Holt broke some of the dialectical rules on purpose. For example, on the healthcare issue, he gave candidates DeBlasio, Gabbard and Booker extra time to speak because, in Holt's words, "I've let this play out a little bit because I'm fascinated to hear the daylight between you." Understandable, but unfair to the other debaters.

If one speaker gets an extra boost of time, encouragement, or placement, that speaker might win the debate – not because that one speaker is best, but because the debate was rigged. The moderators had a difficult job, but they made a mess of it.

I was lucky enough to contribute two chapters to Edward Hinck's excellent two-volume set about presidential debates. I don't get royalties from the book sales, but I'd love for people to read it. If you don't want to buy it, a good library could find probably obtain a copy on interlibrary loan. Several of the chapters, including one of mine, talk about debate formats. People interested in American political life might want to take a look.

Debates are all about format. Good formats usually made a good debate. Bad formats guarantee a bad debate. The ancient Greeks knew this, but we have forgotten.

P.S.: I think journalists are sometimes good at asking questions but they have no idea how to run a debate. Any experienced high school or college debate coach could enforce the rules without breaking a sweat.