The Second Democratic Primary Debate: The Poor Format Wrecked This Debate Even Worse

I wrote earlier about how the poor format interfered with the first Democratic primary debate of 2019. We have now heard the second debate, involving ten additional candidates. The second debate followed the same shallow format and the results were even worse. It wasn't just that the format itself encouraged superficial debating, but, worse, the moderators once again failed to enforce the rules. The press was right to call the debate "chaotic." Let's look at why and see why the chaos was bad.

Each candidate was supposed to get only one minute to speak and 30 seconds to respond on any particular point. That's bad enough. You can't prove an important point in 30 seconds. But, as the debate went on, some candidates got much more speaking time than others.

Once again, the good people at FiveThirtyEight counted how many words each candidate spoke. If the moderators had followed the rules and done their jobs, each candidate would have spoken about the same number of words. Instead, candidates interrupted one another, spoke when it was not their turn, went over the time limit, or begged for special favors from the moderators. The result is that some speakers got more time to speak, pretty much regardless of whether they had anything to say. This worked for Kamala Harris, who stole a nice chunk of speaking time to attack Joe Biden and make a name for herself, but it meant that someone else who had worthy things to say didn't get a chance to say them.

Biden, the front-runner, was able to speak 2475 words, the most of any debater in the second debate. Kamala Harris, who has been polling poorly, got in 2147 words. Press favorite Pete Buttigieg spoke 2072 forgettable words. Bernie Sanders, who ranks second in most polls, screamed 1676 words in a bizarre monotone. John Hickenlooper, who established himself as a moderate by misrepresenting the Green New Deal, only said 951 words, while Andrew Yang, who gained most of his attention by not wearing a necktie, came dead last in the word count by speaking only 594 words. In other words, the most verbose candidate spoke more than four times as many words as the least verbose. That, quite simply, was a failure of the moderators.

I particularly thought it was a shame that author Marianne Williamson got in only 983 words. No, she will never be president, no matter what, but when she spoke she chose words well and hit issues right in the heart. We needed to hear more from her. The other candidates could have learned from her. Plus, I have an obvious soft spot for writers.

Now, I will admit that the candidates were hard to corral. Politicians tend to be forceful people. The top candidates were extremely aggressive. Only an even more forceful moderator could have made them behave. Alas, reporters tend to be thoughtful, cerebral types and they did not have the skills to control people who did not want to be controlled.

If I had my way, an experienced high school or college debate coach would moderate the debates. A person with serious debate experience could have more easily handled the debaters and enforced the format better than the journalists. Or maybe they could find a teacher who is accustomed to handling unruly classrooms. Same skill set.

We want the best debaters to stand out, and the best future president is not necessarily the loudest one. The rules could have helped turn a wild dispute into a real debate. But the rules didn't seem to apply in these two debates.

P.S. For an example of a real debate, watch the first Kennedy-Nixon debate. Those guys knew what they were doing behind a lectern.