A prez TV-debate for two candidates already involves a manpower of dozens of lawyers, spin doctors and PR experts to draft a mutual set of rules --just see the article below. Now imagine how much more paperwork and lawyers a TV debate with 3,4 or a dozen candidates would be required in your daydream multi-party scheme!!
The rules of engagement: no touching, no props, no sweat
Rupert Cornwell
30 September 2004
Prime Minister's question time it is not - nor even a tamer version of Mastermind. Instead, the critics say, tonight's much-hyped debate between John Kerry and George Bush will amount to little more than two party political broadcasts - only delivered live and simultaneously by the candidates themselves.
Not raised in the cut-and-thrust of a parliamentary system, American presidential candidates like their debates to be as unspontaneous and risk-free as possible. Hence the quite extraordinary rules drawn up for tonight's match-up in Florida to be chaired by Jim Lehrer.
There will be no direct questioning of one candidate by the other. To all intents and purposes, there will be no follow-up questions to pin down a candidate who has given a particularly slippery answer.
Meanwhile, the audience will be seen but not heard. According to the 32-page "memorandum" agreed by lawyers representing both sides, audience participation is to be confined to "silent observation". The two candidates are barred from taking "props, notes, charts and diagrams" on stage. But they are permitted to make notes during the debate, on "any size, colour or type of paper".
The height of the podium will be 50ins. The rostrums will be 10ft apart, and the candidates will not be allowed to approach each other - a stipulation of the 5ft 11in President, who would be dwarfed by the 6ft 4ins challenger.
Mr Kerry on the other hand has a tendency to perspire under the lights. The memo therefore insists on, "an appropriate temperature according to industry standards". The aim is to prevent a Nixon-style sweat disaster.
The biggest row, however, is over the ban on "cutaway shots" - when the camera shifts from the candidate who is speaking to the one who is not. Cutaway shots have stamped some past debates - take Dan Quayle's frightened look as his vice-presidential rival, Lloyd Bentsen, delivered his "You're no Jack Kennedy" line in 1988, or when millions of viewers saw a bored-looking George Bush Snr glance at his watch during a 1992 debate with Bill Clinton and Ross Perot.
Last time, the image of a disdainful Al Gore sighing as George W Bush was speaking was a prime reason why he was judged to have lost the debate. This time no one is taking such chances.
But TV journalists are outraged. "Unprecedented stuff," complains Jeff Greenfield, a senior CNN political analyst. The networks are threatening to show cutaways anyway - which raises the interesting question whether Mr Bush will pull out of the two remaining debates, if the rules are broken. It is assumed Mr Kerry, who is trailing in the polls, will gamely put up with any indignity.
news.independent.co.uk |
