CE Week #12: “Debates short on substance”
David S. Broder
Washington Post
November 18, 2007
During Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was given a chance to answer the question about offering driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
Before CNN’s Wolf Blitzer turned to him, several of Richardson’s rivals had wrestled with the question that had thrown Sen. Hillary Clinton for a loop in the previous debate, triggering two weeks of complaints that she was being dodgy.
Clearly intent on setting that notion to rest, she answered this time with a monosyllable, “No.” Her governor, Eliot Spitzer, had abandoned the plan a day earlier, so she was joining the retreat.
Instead, it was Sen. Barack Obama who seemed flummoxed, At first, he acknowledged that he had voted as an Illinois state senator to require undocumented aliens to “get trained, get a license, get insurance to protect public safety.” But a moment later, confusingly, he said, “I am not proposing that that’s what we do.” And finally, he said, “Yes.”
Former Sen. John Edwards objected to the question, then said, “No, but … anyone who’s on the path to earning American citizenship should be able to have a driver’s license.”
Sen. Chris Dodd said, “I think driver’s licenses are the wrong thing to be doing, in terms of attracting people to come here as undocumented.”
Rep. Dennis Kucinich objected to the question because “there aren’t any illegal human beings,” and, after an irrelevant swipe at NAFTA, ended up agreeing with Edwards.
And then came Richardson, who said that four years ago, when the Legislature sent him a bill allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, “I signed it. My law enforcement people said it’s a matter of public safety. … We wanted more people to be insured. When we started with this program, 33 percent of New Mexicans were uninsured. Today, it’s 11 percent. Traffic fatalities have gone down. It’s a matter of public safety. States have to act when the federal government and Congress doesn’t act (on comprehensive immigration reform).”
Blitzer then turned to Sen. Joe Biden, whose whole answer, like Clinton’s, was, “No.”
And, of course, none of the other candidates was ever asked, “What about the public safety argument cited by Richardson?”
That is revealing of the weakness of these debates as tools for helping voters decide which candidate to support. The TV impresarios are so eager for headlines, they rarely pause to ask the candidates for evidence to support their opinions or assertions. It is bang-bang, but rarely because-and-here’s-proof.
On driver’s licenses, Richardson offered such proof, but in another case, he did not. His “solution” to Iraq is to pull out all U.S. troops and contractors within a year and leave it to “an all-Muslim, all-Arab peacekeeping force, with some European forces, headed by the U.N.”
Well, it’s a nice idea, but such a force exists only in Richardson’s imagination – and none is likely to materialize. But he is not called upon to explain.
Three weeks ago, it was Clinton “stumbling.” On Thursday, she was feisty and aggressive, flinging her own accusations of mud-slinging at Edwards and Obama, and finding inconsistencies in their positions.
In all the sound and fury, several important points were lost. The candidates circled around – but never directly engaged – the question of whether it is realistic, effective and practical to mandate that every family in the country obtain health insurance – and if so, how it would be financed.
As to international policy, we learned along the way that Clinton is more hard-line than her main rivals, not only on her willingness to keep a substantial residual force in Iraq, but in her belief that national security trumps human rights as a priority for American foreign policy. No Jimmy Carter she.
But the implications of these positions go unexplored, because there’s always another candidate, another topic, another headline clamoring for attention.
I suspect these candidates are better than they have looked, and that they’d have reasons to give, if they had time to utter them. I know the voters deserve better. Can’t these debates be rescued?
Well, if politics aren’t confusing enough! It’s funny how a straight forward question like “should illegal immigrants be allotted driver’s licenses” could manage to stir up so much confusion and chaos. No, yes, maybe, um…. Come on, I know that candidates must be very deliberate in their answers because they do want to get elected, but isn’t there any legitimacy or validity in answers these days. I honestly don’t feel its that hard to form an opinion on a topic, it’s their trying to spin it into a multipurpose answer that suits all American’s favorably that causes ambiguous messages. I agree with the author that voters could really differentiate between the candidates better and identify their motives for their answers better if the debates called for justification of their responses. Not that I’ve been an avid follower of debates in the last presidential elections, but if they follow the trend of American tendencies the primary purpose of their coverage is to sell airtime. In order to sell airtime, there must be drama, emotions, and controversy. None of those are found in the tedious, ‘down to business’ answers to issues that really matter. So to the author, as much as I hope that “debates can be saved”, I don’t believe they will be in the crazy realm of American politics.
I love the ambiguous and people-pleasing answers that the candidates seemed to give to the question about illegals obtaining driver’s licenses. Of course after Spitzer abandoned his position on the matter Hillary Clinton followed suit and as usual tried to pick up the slack that she showed in previous weeks. In this case I think Barack Obama is being unfairly criticized. No I’m not being hypocritical, instead of actually changing his position he simply stated how he’s voted in the past, as a senator, and how he would act as President towards the matter, completely different things. My favorite answer was of course Kucinich’s, so random and so doesn’t answer the question, further affirming my views that he should be the next president and his trophy wife after him.
But really, what is the world coming to when a political debate ends after the candidate answers the question “no”. The moderator needs to insure that they seek not only headlines (which seem to be completely unavoidable) but actual answers to their questions and the proof to go with them. If the American public doesn’t start complaining about this we’re never going to be able to adequately compare the candidates on a point-to-point basis.
I think each candidate should just stop trying to please the people and answer the questions that the people are asking HONESTLY! They need to be able to take a stand for something, instead of being indecisive about everything in order to please people. What are they going to do when they are elected and a real problem comes up when they have to make a split second decision? This is seriously ridiculous. We need more strong leaders. Ones that can take a strong stand. It’s horrible that everyone is so concerned about popular opinion. Sometimes the right thing isn’t always the most popular thing.
To Emily:
First of all, I like how your solution to the problems of the world is complaining! Do you think that complaining, I don’t know, might have a past tendency to start problems, rather than resolve them as you claim? Okay, in all seriousness, I’m sorry for “picking a fight” or something! I just don’t think that this will ever get sorted out. I mean, unless someone can completely change human nature, much less the American society, you just can’t make people care. Americans are handed so much and very few of them can really understand how much sacrifice it took/ takes to preserve their freedom. Americans don’t value their right to vote and no one can make them. Until Americans start caring less about who is going to win Monday Night Football and more about the who is going to be the next leader of the ‘free world’, then debates will continue to be nothing more than media events set up for the sole purpose of making money and causing conflict. It’s sick, it’s pessimistic, but its reality. Not that I don’t want or hope that debates will someday actually discuss the issues, I just don’t foresee it happening.
Happy Thanksgiving guys!
That is just like Kucinich to go after NAFTA, what a nut!
I like Richardson’s answer. Though it is dangerous because it provides a sound-bite and some b-roll, he took a stance. He explained why. He gave an example in history of his stance being correct, and as an added bonus there was a little expose moment of his personal wisdom. That’s a well crafted debate answer. Statistics: hell yes.
And yes, it is frustrating that none of the other candidates were asked about his argument. It is a symptom of the pre-packing of these debates, where everyone knows everything that’s coming. There is no spontaneity, and no line that hasn’t been focus grouped. Give me a debate, CNN. C’mon Blitzer, ask the tough questions!
But then Richardson has to go and lose my respect again with that Iraq thing. Silly little Richardson. I guess this little emotional roller coaster that I’m on now (emo-coaster) is the point of the article. The candidates are bad? Yeah, well check out the debates. Yeah, I know… yes seriously.
This is more of an aside than the main point of the article, but I’m disappointed to find out that Hillary Clinton thinks National Security trumps Human Rights. Not surprised though; she’s a realist. Or, a—pragmatist.