American Presidential Election Debates Talking Points.

I got bored over the last week and since election season is fully on in the United States of America, I decided to do what any cool person would when they're bored - watch some old videos. I took a deep dive and saw all the general election debates for the US presidency since 1992 and here are some of the things I learnt.

1. Americans have been arguing about the same things since before I was born.

Everyone of those debates had 3 broad topics; 

i. what to do about healthcare

ii. How to generate and distribute entitlements

iii. Which foreign country to hate.

I think Americans don't have a lot of problems, to be honest and because of that, they have decided to treasure the ones they have and not solve it because, what do you do when you solve all your problems? You get bored and watch presidential debates, apparently.

Instead of coming together, liberals and conservatives, have a honest, good faith debate and find a middle ground, American politicians have decided the best thing to do is kick the can down the road till it blows up in their face.

In the Clinton vs. Dole debate of 1996, they spent a large portion of it debating who's poor and who's middle class.

By the way, which one of y'all grandpas pushed Senator Bob Dole to contest again William Jefferson Clinton? Bill had that man for supper, judging by those debates alone, the first question that came to my mind was "how bad were the other republican contestants?"

A closely related point is, nothing's changed in American politics and there's a shortage of news ideas. Donald Trump is just a reincarnation of Ross Perot. A less smart, more brash version but he went a step further by joining a major party instead of trying as a third party.

Which leads to the next lesson I learnt:

2. Debates can be unfair!

I am a big proponent of debates, I firmly believe no election, no matter how small and insignificant it may seem, be held without proper, well structured debates. Candidates for office must be taken to task to explain their motivating forces, explain their policies and proposals and defend their previous and potential future positions. However, we have to admit, not everyone is skilled in the art of negotiations and sound bites that tend to put one above their opponent in the debate formats we currently have.

Take 2 examples, Bush v. Gore, 2000 and Obama v. Romney 12 years later. 

In 2000, then vice president Al Gore, in my opinion, had the better plan and better explanations for his policy positions but he took too long to get to his point and wasn't as articulate, you can say (I hate using the word) boring! Everytime Gore took the time to explain his tax plans or healthcare plans or anything, for that matter, with facts and figures, Bush just responded with what I think was a well rehearsed phrase "fuzzy maths" or "fuzzy numbers". Bush was clearly directing his answers at the regular old Joe at home, sitting and watching and probably have a deep seated mistrust of politicians. 

No one does catchphrases like the 44th president though, his more famous lines included "the 1980s called and they want their foreign policies back", when His opponent, Mitt Romney, tried to warn about the dangers Russia posed. Mr. Obama won the battle but, if you remember 2016 well, he badly lost the war.

Lawyers and sweet talkers like Clinton and Obama will probably always have an upper hand, going into a debate and there must be a better way to even the field and that's where the third point comes in...

3. More Jim Lehrer, less whatever it is we have going on right now.

Jim Lehrer is a class act. Firm but fair debate moderator and always let the debaters speak! When you watch those debates, it feels like you travelled back a million years. There was a time when Bill Clinton calling president H. W Bush "Mr. Bush" was called controversial.

I hope those people all died before 2020 because their hearts wouldn't take what they saw on display.

Back to the topic; I am an avid consumer of the news and cable channels but God knows I am tired of journalists making themselves the news instead of just covering it!

I hope all the moderators in this cycle bring back the Lehrer model.

Finally, America is and will probably be the greatest nation on earth for the foreseeable future but a lot need to change to keep them in that position for longer and that starts from having honest, fair and good faith debates, on all issues, arriving at a comfortable position and giving room for refining down the line. 

I leave you with the words of Bill Clinton from debate '96 "no attack ever created a job or educated a child or helped a family make ends meet. No insult ever cleaned up a toxic waste or helped an elderly person".