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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (34526)	9/4/2000 1:44:23 PM
From: Mr. Whist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

I agree that the debates would be better if more pad and pencil reporters asked the questions, as opposed to TV-type "talking heads." However, I've never really had a problem with the questions. Every once in a while there's a doozy, i.e., "If your daughter were raped ..." Anyone can pretty much predict what the questions will be: Compare and contrast your prescription drug plan with your opponent's ... compare and contrast Star Wars, education policy, school vouchers, defense policy, etc. My gut feeling is that GWB is uncomfortable with having to speak for up to 2 minutes at a time. Remember, this is the guy who has bragged that he hasn't read a serious book since graduating from college.

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (34526)	9/4/2000 2:29:44 PM
From: Mr. Whist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

... Or why even have any questioners at all? Why not just let the candidates question each other? The following makes the same point. It's a Wall Street Journal editorial that ran over the weekend. A portion of the WSJ editorial follows: "Our own preference would be to let the two candidates go at one another without any media supervision. A moderator could be on hand mostly to make sure the two men receive more or less equal time over the course of, say, two hours. But otherwise the candidates would set their own agenda, taking more than a mere 60 seconds to respond to a question, and more than just 30 seconds to rebut, as in the current pattern. "This is more or less the way Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas did it, going back and forth on many issues, and voters showed up not just for the drama, but to learn something. Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry and former GOP Governor Bill Weld did something similar in their 1996 Senate race. The objection will be that this won't wash in today's short-attention-span-theater age. But our guess is that a more free-flowing debate might actually lure more viewers."