Quote from: John Morrow;218652I'm starting to feel that there should be a requirement for some reasonable number of debates (4-10) in a variety of formats (podium, desk, town-hall, etc.) where each side gets to pick a questioner (with some sort of qualifications of who can be picked and perhaps with some number of "peremptory challenges" that lets each side veto a choice of the other side) so that the candidate that's ahead can't evade debates and both candidates can't cherry-pick the formats that they think make them look best.  I doubt we could get the major parties to go for that, though.

I'm not thrilled at how debates are handled the past decade or two, but the problems seem to be a mix of many factors including the media, how the candidates conduct themselves as well as the general framework.  The debates do about as well as I would expect of any other plan, which I guess is me being pessimistic.  

We're in an age where sound bites seem to take the lead.  Though to be fair, pre-television politics had plenty of its own faults including candidates blatantly saying opposite things to different crowds and then denying what they said.  

Quote from: Koltar;218740Yeah, I know its Off Topic....but its also yet another political thread by John Morrow too. Be nice to hear more about what John is doing with games.

Well, this is an explicitly political thread in the Off-Topic forum.  Yes, Morrow has had a tendency to drag politics into other threads, but here he's behaving fine.  He asked, and the people who responded are presumably interested in talking about it.

Quote from: Koltar;218740Yeah, I know its Off Topic....but its also yet another political thread by John Morrow too. Be nice to hear more about what John is doing with games.

I've been posting about games, too, including starting two threads in the RPG forum recently.  It's not as if this wasn't clearly a political thread when you clicked on it.

Quote from: jeff37923;218396I'd have to agree that McCain seems to be an old-school Traveller guy, especially with his stance of record on aliens and security.

I bet he's really excited about the BSG RPG. (I just saw this. )

The debates should be the two candidates on a stage sitting in chairs facing each other and just arguing for 2-3 hours.

Also, the networks should only be allowed to play the feed and that's it.

Have maybe one every month during the election period.

I know it's a complete fantasy, but why not?  Any politician who feels that he or she can't compete in that kind of situation is certainly not one I want leading the most powerful country in the world.

Quote from: walkerp;220299I know it's a complete fantasy, but why not?  Any politician who feels that he or she can't compete in that kind of situation is certainly not one I want leading the most powerful country in the world.

The problem is that each debate format works well for some candidates and not others, which is why I'd like to see them coerced into a variety of formats including formal podium debates, sitting at a desk like a Sunday political show, a town hall where they have to walk around and connect to voters, and so on.  One of the reasons why Obama is dodging the town hall meetings that McCain likes is that he's been doing badly with that sort of format and looking horrible.  McCain, on the other hand, wants to avoid formal debates because he does poorly in that format and with prepared statements.