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.

The Second Democratic Primary Debate: Is This Any Way to Choose the Leader of the Free World?

The second Democratic primary debate, same as the first?

Who won the debate? That is almost a meaningless question. The only way to win a presidential debate is to win the election in November 2020. Everything else is just warmup.

Did some of the candidates improve their chances or hurt their causes? My first impression is that Kamala Harris did a very good job of debating, which should not surprise anyone who has paid attention to her career. She often set the agenda, especially on the civil rights issue. Joe Biden started out well but became defensive when civil rights issue came up. Marianne Williamson, whom few people have ever heard of, was clear, articulate, and intelligent. She showed razor-sharp political instincts. But she doesn't have a prayer to win. Kathleen Gillibrand made sense and kept her cool. She also has little chance. Bernie Sanders sounded like a crazy person, which seems to be what his supporters like about him. The other men made very little impression on me.

All of those impressions could change as the public has time to digest what the debaters said and how they acted during the debate.

Just as in the first primary debate, the moderators lost control. The candidates who shouted most loudly got more turns to speak. Politicians tend to be forceful people and the moderators didn't seem to know how to regulate them. However, the loudest and most forceful debater might not make the best president. The moderators' job is to make sure that everyone gets a fair chance. That didn't happen last night and it didn't happen tonight, either.

These debates were still important, however. Here's why: the press has been reporting most forcefully and repeatedly about the candidates who already have name recognition, like Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. They have consistently under-reported the female candidates, and Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren in particular both deserved better. Although the moderators' bias still showed in these debates, Harris and Warren and some of the other lesser-known candidates were able to make their points. That in itself was worthwhile.

What else? Issue discussions were brief and shallow. Candidates fought to be heard. There was too much yelling. The moderators sometimes let their own egos take over. 

Nevertheless, the sometimes very liberal positions that the candidates took will not play in the general election. Voters should expect to hear the Democratic nominee take somewhat more conservative positions about immigration and maybe healthcare in the general election. That is because political candidates have two audiences: the first audience consists of the ideologically-motivated primary voters, while the second audience consists of the broader group of voters in general. Donald Trump handled that divide with finesse in 2016. Hillary Clinton struggled with the same problem. How will the 2020 Democratic candidate do? Time will tell.

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.

Tyler Perry at the 2019 BET Awards: "Helping Someone Cross" as a Metaphor for Reaching Out to Help

There’s been plenty of discussion about Tyler Perry’s enthusiastic acceptance speech at last weekend’s BET Awards. Let’s talk about how he organized his speech: he told the story, drew a moral from the story, and repeated that moral in slightly different words throughout the speech. This gave his presentation thematic unity while adding to its emotional power.

He started by talking about his mother, whom his father abused physically. As a small child, Tyler watched her play cards with her friends. After one of the times his father beat his mother, he imitated the women's jokes so his mother would laugh.

Still a small child, Perry was walking to school one day and found a man struggling to cross at an intersection. The man said, “Will someone help me cross – will someone help me cross?” Perry said that moment, when the man needed help, “reminded me of my mother, bringing her out of pain, into laughter. To help her cross.” So he helped the man cross the street.

Perry then explained that, when he started his production company, he hired unknown actors: "God blessed me to be in a position to be able to hire them. I was trying to help somebody cross.” He built a studio in a poor neighborhood in Atlanta “so that young black kids could see that a black man did that, and they could do it too. I was trying to help somebody cross.”

He concluded: “It’s all about helping somebody cross.” 

Students of public speaking history will recall that Booker T. Washington used a similar metaphorical technique in his famous speech at the 1895 Cotton States Exposition: where he emphasized his theme by repeating the phrase “cast down your bucket where you are.”  Hey, it works, and we can learn a lot by studying creative public speeches of the past and present.

Perry had been introduced as an icon. He responded: “Rather than being an icon, I want to be an inspiration.”

Helping people to cross started as a story about an elderly man getting across the street but grew into a metaphor about helping other people advance, about holding out a hand to help people who otherwise could not succeed to fulfill their talents and ambitions and contribute something to the world.

Perry spoke energetically and without notes. Nevertheless, his speech was obviously prepared in advance. Good actors know how important it is to practice and every speaker should know the same thing. Let’s also note that Tyler Perry’s speech was very short: about four minutes. Booker T. Washington's speech was planned for about five minutes (although he obviously spoke a little bit longer). Short speeches sometimes carry the most power. 

P.S.: Note to my fellow communication specialists: rhetorical critics rarely pay much attention to organization. But speech organization can become the message.

Once Again, a School Denies a Student Her First Amendment Free Speech Rights: The Case of Emily Hernandez Medina

Bill of Rights, National Archives

This kind of thing has happened several times and I’m getting tired of hearing about it. Emily Hernandez Medina, valedictorian of Nevada’s North Valleys High School, wanted to talk about students and groups who were often neglected in school. She had prepared a graduation speech that was charming but a tiny bit controversial. The school administration refused to allow her to give her speech, which she then posted on the Internet, thus getting far more publicity than if she had spoken at the ceremony.

So, once again, an outstanding graduating senior was denied her First Amendment rights.

Emily's speech, which sounded innocuous when I listened to it, carried this theme: “So, here's to all the fine arts kids, STEM students, and those in chess, robotics, academic Olympics, Latino Club and Key Club.” She spoke at length about her experiences in school orchestra and praised the school band and choir. She thanked her mother in Spanish. She commented that: “While it seems like athletes are the face of the school, you are the ones that add so much personality and depth to this community. You're not invisible.” This was apparently not positive enough to satisfy the school’s administration.

It seems that Emily was listed in the program but was not introduced as a speaker. Emily says that her hallway valedictorian photo was replaced by a cruel caricature. She offered to rewrite the speech but was rebuffed. The school’s administrators declined to comment about the event; the school district issued the bland statement that: "Editorial decisions by school administration are common as schools plan, practice and develop the program for a graduation ceremony."

Comments:

1. Emily did not surrender her First Amendment rights when she walked through the schoolroom door or stands up to give a presentation to her classmates and parents. In the case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment gives substantial protection for students when they express a controversial point. Exceptions are made if the student’s speech or behavior would be obscene or disruptive, but Emily’s speech, although thought-provoking, posed no danger of disrupting the proceedings.

2. People often have a stuffy idea of what is appropriate in a graduation or ceremonial speech. Their excessively tender sensibilities do not overturn the student’s free speech rights. Although many people are more comfortable when they hear a bland graduation speech, there is no requirement that the student should give a forgettable speech.

3. A bureaucracy’s first instinct is to defend itself. In general, I think highly of our nation’s public schools, but anyone who interacts with schools knows that they do sometimes become not only bureaucratic but prickly and defensive. This seems to be a case in point.

4. I sympathize with Emily’s point that academic excellence, which is supposed to be a school’s mission, often takes second place to athletics. I was a good high school student, although I was not a star like Emily, and I participated in activities like the debate team and literary magazine. Emily was trying to call her audience’s attention to academics. That was entirely right. Every high school in the country lists academics at the top of their mission statement, do they not? All three of my children participated in school orchestra (two of them eventually became professional musicians), so I felt a special soft spot for Emily’s pride at participating in a school musical group.

If we want to teach civics to high school students, we must recognize that constitutional rights start in our own neighborhoods, our own backyards, and, yes, in school graduation ceremonies. If people felt uncomfortable with what Emily said, the solution was not to squelch her, but to think about the values that she spoke for and to give academic stars a better experience. She had a right to speak. Instead of teaching good citizenship by example, the school taught Emily that the world can be unjust. The school also (accidentally) helped her learn to fight injustice.

It's not enough to praise our United States Constitution. We must also live by it.

I have blogged about ceremonial speeches many times. Never underestimate a good ceremonial speech’s power to get us thinking.

P.S. Congratulations to Emily on her fine work in high school. Best of good fortune to her.