Who to eliminate from the next presidential debates
You know what was nice about the Thursday night GOP presidential debate in Detroit? Fewer participants. I still feel like each candidate could have been given more time per answer in an effort to get beyond sound bites, but the debate seemed a bit more focused now that the field has been winnowed down to four.
I have a good idea for who we should get rid of next. It's the people who bothered me the most during the Fox News debate.
It's the live audience of folks, many of them seemingly too eager to hear their own voices when that's the last thing the rest of us want to hear as we try to compare and contrast candidates. And while the audience can provide the coveted energy some of the networks want, it also tends to get in the way.
Perhaps the quickest fix to getting the debates to a more serious tone would be to empty the hall of everyone except the questioners, the candidates and the technical folks needed to bring the event into our homes.
No more shouts of support, no more hoots of derision, no more live audience. What, I ask, do those folks add other than noise that often encourages candidates' lesser behavior? As we have worked our way through the debates, we've seen various levels of audience participation. Thursday's was pretty bad at times despite Fox News' Bret Baier's opening request to the folks seated behind him in the theater.
"We have a big crowd here," he said, "and while we expect the audience to be enthusiastic and responsive at times, and they have already been, we also expect them to be respectful and we want the candidates to get their full time."
I didn't need the booing while Fox News' Chris Wallace properly asked Trump about the blistering criticism he received earlier in the day from Mitt Romney.
The unnecessary, distracting audience noise feeds the nonsense, sometimes forcing candidates -- in addition to trying to be heard over each other -- to crank up the decibels to be heard over the live audience, which fueled exchanges such as when Wallace said he had a policy question for Trump.
"Let's see if he answers it," Marco Rubio said.
"I will," said Trump, "Don't worry about it, Marco. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it little Marco, I will." Rubio, drawn into the middle-school melee and the audience-infused energy, came back with, "All right, well, let's hear it for big Donald." Trump parried with, "Don't worry about it, little Marco," to which Wallace said. "Gentlemen. Gentlemen. You have got to do better than this." Indeed. And I think they would if we didn't have debates produced at times to lean more toward verbal gladiator combat than measured discussion of the perilous issues we confront. Without a live, over-involved audience, perhaps we wouldn't have had interplay such as this between Trump and Ted Cruz in Detroit.
"Donald, please," Cruz said insufferably, "I know it's hard not to interrupt. But try. ... Breathe, breathe, breathe." "Lyin' Ted," Trump said.
"You can do it," Cruz said. "You can breathe. I know it's hard. I know it's hard." At another point, Cruz urged Trump to "Count to 10, Donald. Count to 10." "Give me a break," Trump said.
Give us all a break. Too often, the debates' tone and tenor has been torqued up by networks eager for action. Some have been better than others. Thursday's was bad, bad enough to leave me ready for a ban on live audiences -- or at least live audiences that can't resist being part of the action -- at all future debates.
Write Ken Herman, a columnist for the Austin American-Statesman, at kherman@statesman.com.
This story was originally published March 5, 2016 at 6:57 PM with the headline "Who to eliminate from the next presidential debates ."