by Melissa Parkin
Following the third Republican
Debate, both liberal and conservative minds alike can agree on one thing: the
evening was an utter disaster. Those words would naturally imply that the
candidates bombed in glorious fashion, but in a rare turn of events, it’s in
fact CNBC’s moderators who are to blame. How on earth did this all go down?
Given the fact that the stage
held ten candidates and that the debate was renegotiated to run for only two
hours versus the previously slated three, the limited time would prove
infinitely tricky in terms of questioning, the length allowed for a response,
and when to permit a rebuttable. Clearly, moderators John Harwood, Becky Quick,
and Carl Quintanilla couldn’t effectively run the program, given that the
entire first half of the debate resulted in the candidates barely being allowed
to interact with their fellow opponents, which led to random moments of loud
cross-talk; it could be called cacophonous.
Things took a turn for the ugly
when Senator Ted Cruz was asked whether his opposition to a budget agreement
reached in Washington this week revealed that he is “not the kind of problem-solver
American voters want?”
“The questions asked in this
debate illustrate why the American people don't trust the media,” Cruz responded.
“This is not a cage match. ‘Donald Trump, are you a comic book villain?’ ‘Marco
Rubio, why don't you resign?’ ‘Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?’”
Cruz finished by adding, “How
about talking about the substantive issues?”
And that point was right on
target. Going into a presidential debate, you know that the questions aren’t
going to be like Monty Python & the
Holy Grail, where “what’s your favorite color?” is the hardest subject
you’ll face. The questions asked last night though were all rather worded quite
poorly, showed blatant contempt to its respondents, or were substantially
irrelevant to American voters…like being asked about Fantasy Football. Yes,
Fantasy Football! Because of this
unprofessionalism, the candidates were allowed to dance around tougher
questions by simply remarking on the moderators’ incivility, essentially
playing a game of political I’m Rubber,
You’re Glue. Things didn’t get any better as the moderators showed
increased hostility towards the candidates, in which Governor Chris Christie
hammered the final nail into the coffin when Harwood continued with his snide questioning.
“Do you want to answer, or do you want me to
answer?” Christie shot back. “Because I got to tell you the truth, even in New
Jersey what you’re doing is called rude.”
Ouch.
The best out of the three Republican
debates was undoubtedly the second, which was hosted by CNN. Why might that be?
Because it remained fair and balanced. Based on surveys taken back in January, 43%
of the American public identifies themselves as politically independent. It’s no
surprise that news networks show bias towards certain political standings, and
it only becomes more apparent during debates. This cripples the effectiveness of hosting, given that the networks
are immediately discriminating against that forty-three percent, who genuinely
wish to know which (if any) of the candidates’ policies and opinions match
their own.
Apparently, CNBC’s moderators
didn’t take any notes from the CNN debate, because they ignored all the qualities
that Anderson Cooper brought to the table. CNN’s renowned anchor and journalist
conducted himself with the equality and objectiveness required for the role.
His inquiries spanned across the entire spectrum of conservative and liberal
issues, putting the Republican candidates in the position to discuss their own
polices, but forced them to also tackle sensitive subject matters that may influence
potential voters. To say that CNBC dropped the ball on this would be putting it
lightly. This was the perfect chance to ask progressive questions about race,
women’s rights, climate change, and gay rights that have little chance of being
covered in the next debate held by Fox News.
Ultimately, the third
Republican Debate served as great, shocking entertainment, but serviced no one
in terms of substance. It was ultimately round after round of playground
antics, despite the room being made up of adult men and women. Because of the
unconventional and very shoddy programming, the standards of declaring a winner
here are impossible to implement. The CNBC moderators wound up looking
extremely unprofessional, the Democrats gained no political ammunition, the
Republicans are no closer to narrowing down the list of candidates, and
independent voters remain grossly uninformed of the Republicans’ standpoints.
Whether you are liberal, conservative, or somewhere in between, there’s no
denying that this was one of the most painful viewing experiences in recent
political history.
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