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When I first came to the US, back in the fall of 1992, we were a few days away from the presidential elections. My friend, a political junkie (and an economic one) with whom I shared the apartment, wanted us to buy a TV immediately so that we could watch the the presidential debates. Unfortunately for him, the debates were already over. Personally, I was glad about it because I didn’t want to cough up the money for a TV when we were earning so little money. But I was intrigued by the idea of a presidential debate, telecast live. In my naivete, I fantasized how wonderful the whole event would be, serious discussions about the things that mattered, by the two people who in a short time would have the power to assert the most influence. I presumed I’d be awestruck by the display of intellectual rigor and the presentation of facts. Yesterday, I watched the first of the presidential debates this year between Obama and McCain on my laptop, intermittently and with not much interest. What happened between 1992 and 2008 that made me feel so jaded about an event that I had been so in awe of ? Was it just middle age (drat, there I admitted it) and fatherhood ?

The presidential debates are an artifact of the modern age of TV, though a few debates did occur in the past, the most famous being the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. They were proposed by a student at the University of Maryland which caught the attention of the national press and a few years later, in 1960, the first debate was held between John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon, which many acknowledged Kennedy had won. After a hiatus between 1960 and 1976, the presidential debates resumed in earnest in 1976.

Presidential debates are more theater than substance, as just about anything that befits the TV is bound to be. I remember reading that if TV was around when FDR was running for president, he may have never won, being stuck in a wheelchair in his last term. Drummed up and opined by the media who declare the winner and the loser, gaffes – such as Gerald Ford’s statement in the 1976 debate that “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe” – or witty remarks – such as Reagan’s in the 1984 debate, when he was 73: “I will not make age an issue in this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” – can be a leading cause of defeat or victory at the polls. Looking wan as he was recovering from an injury and two weeks at the hospital and wearing a suit that caused him to blend into the background, Richard Nixon came out looking worse compared to a relaxed and healthy looking Kennedy. Flash over substance, matter over mind.

However, in the intial years, The League of Women Voters which had sponsored the debates from 1976 to 1984, is reported to have done a good job in running the debates in a non-partisan way, preparing questions and setting the agenda in a way that made it difficult to provide canned responses. So, the two parties began to fight for tighter control of the debates to make their candidates come out looking better prepared. In 1988, LWV withdrew its sponsorship, disgusted:

“The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship of the presidential debates…because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates’ organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.”

Since then, the debates have been controlled and run by a commission headed by both the major parties in this country. Third party candidates are not permitted to participate in the debate, though Ross Perot, the only third party candidate to have made some dent in a largely two party country, did participate the first time he ran for presidency. Other third party candidates such as Ralph Nader have been denied a chance to participate despite protests and lawsuits. In 2000, when Nader’s name was on the ballot in most of the 50 states, attempted to enter the debate auditorium as a spectator (granted a ticket by a sympathetic student), he was barred from entering the location by police officers and an official from the presidential debate commission. Prominent media outlets like the New York Times have also been on the side of excluding third party candidates from these debates.

So, in the self-proclaimed world’s greatest democracy, people who have a legitimate voice in the discourse have been barred from participating in it. The debates themselves are so staged, there is little of substance that is said, it being more important to come across as pleasing or commanding or whatever the word that grabs the fancy of the country that year, rather than speak substance. Al Gore who attempted professorial answers to questions was snubbed and said as being too wooden and pontificating. This year, the worry was whether Obama would come across similarly, giving long answers instead of short, pithy responses.

In an age where speed and monetary growth are the two most lauded and sought after values, we don’t have (nay, don’t want) the time to pause, consider a measured response and reflect. Everything has to be reduced to sound bites, so nothing detracts us too long from our pursuit of life, liberty and happiness (or should I call it by what it really is, collection of material artifacts to hide our hunger and emptiness in connecting and feeling connected). Part of the desire for pithier responses also comes because we’re tired of hearing long, obfuscating answers to questions not asked. But, in a world that is growing more complicated with the set of challenges that face humanity, our craving for simple answers, one word fixes, quick fixes, is dangerous. When you want to question the very framework of the questions, you cannot respond in sound bites. The questions assume a particular world-view and to challenge that view requires more than just a few words. Nuclear power seems an easy enough answer to global warming, given that we’ve learned to associate the problem with oil. But why it is not the answer requires more words, words that people don’t have the time for. This is why Noam Chomsky is never interviewed by the mainstream media.

We’re also a people who value certainty more than doubt, knowledge more than learning, the result more than the process, doing more than being. So a candidate who expresses ignorance or doubt is cast aside like a leper. To change one’s mind, to admit being wrong is a sin. Instead of being aghast at the enormous cost of unwilling to change his mind in the face of facts, many admired George Bush’s pigheadedness in staying the course, calling it tenacity. Where is sagacity ?

We’re not as rational as we like to think we are. Studies are emerging with increasing frequency that attest to that line from the Simon & Garfunkel song: “All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest”. For example, a recent article talked about how refuting incorrect information doesn’t change by much the views people formed on hearing the misinformation. For example, 56% of Democrat volunteers disapproved of the detainee treatment at Guantanamo Bay before being shown a Newsweek report that a Koran had been flushed down the toilet. After being told about this, 78% of the volunteers disapproved of the treatment. They were then told that Newsweek had detracted the article and that it was false. But the number of volunteers who disapproved the treatment dipped to 68%, still higher than the original 56%. Lies when repeated over and over again, have the power to sound true. Cheney attested over and over again, despite all evidence to the contrary, that Saddam Hussein was lined with 9/11. Even today, many people seem to believe it, as evidenced by Sarah Palin’s regurgitation of that lie. So while fact checks are published after the debate is over on the various statements made by the candidates, I wonder if they have the power to really change people’s minds or if they merely provide fodder to each camp to exult in the mistakes of the other.

Yesterday’s debate was another tired rehash of positions. People expressed disappointment that there was no drama, no fire. What little there was, with McCain saying “Oh please” in response to a strawman that he posed to Obama, was sufficient for me to not desire for more. I neither heard anything new or anything fresh. But then, I didn’t expect any. I was just secretly hoping that Obama wouldn’t do so badly as to be considered as having lost the debate.

So, there, I’ve admitted it. Yes, I do prefer Obama over McCain, not because I think their positions are that vastly different on many key issues. Obama wants to fight in Afghanistan instead of Iraq, agrees that defending Israel is important and is willing to talk the war talk as much as McCain is, is almost as hostage to lobbyists as McCain is and is as nationalistic as McCain is. But, there are many other counts on which I feel a McCain presidency would push this country in a wrong direction. There is a difficulty in this country of understanding the difference between science and theology, between ideas and dogma, a confusion between the map and the territory. A presidency driven by an agenda from the Bible is no better than one driven from the Koran, though a Christian country would have difficulty admitting that. A friend wisely remarked that one of the lasting legacies of the Bush government would be a conservative Supreme Court, a prediction that has been borne out, I believe. For the first time, there is a possibility of abortion being considered illegal again. Decisions in favor of the authority are handed out more often than in favor of the dissenters, more in favor of corporations than people. I’ve also been saddened to see the levels to which McCain is willing to stoop to win and at the latent racism, blue collar workers, white women and Hispanics willing to bet on McCain because Obama is black.

So, while I don’t pay much attention to the presidential debates, I still hope that Obama doesn’t stumble, give cause to people looking for an excuse to switch to McCain.