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spudly
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There was an interesting article in the NY Times about this:
Quote:
WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 - The Commission on Presidential Debates told the Bush and Kerry campaigns Tuesday that it could not accede to their unusual request that it sign by Wednesday their 32-page agreement detailing parameters for the debates.
First of all, the commission said, it has to determine which candidates have enough support in the polls to qualify for the debates, which it does not plan to do until Friday. Regardless of the timing, the new requirement that the independent commission as well as the four journalists selected to moderate the debates sign onto the pact between the two candidates has made some people involved in the process uncomfortable.
The memorandum of understanding negotiated by the campaigns also includes an unusual level of prescriptions, particularly over the town-hall-style debate scheduled for Oct. 8, which some say undermines the idea of a voter-driven discussion. It states several times that audience participation, outside the forum questioners, is prohibited, and calls for visible timing lights, so viewers will know if someone is filibustering.
"The interesting thing here is the lengths they go to to restrict the questioning at the town hall," said Martin Plissner, a debate expert and former CBS News political director. "It makes the whole process look kind of ridiculous. It will have to be extremely mechanical."
The agreement includes four pages of provisions - up from one in 2000 - about the town-hall-style debate, including a requirement that the moderator, Charles Gibson, present to the campaigns by Oct. 1 a question-selection method. Mr. Gibson is to ensure that the audience members pose equal numbers of questions on foreign policy, domestic security and other domestic issues; alternate the candidates to whom their queries are directed; and not alter their pre-selected questions on the fly.
Instead of the "uncommitted" voters typically invited to such events, the auditorium is to be filled with those identified by the Gallup polling organization as leaning toward but not firmly committed to Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry, and Mr. Gibson would have to call on the same number of people from each side.
"If any audience member poses a question or makes a statement that is in any material way different than the question that the audience member earlier submitted to the moderator for review, the moderator will cut off the questioner and advise the audience that such nonreviewed questions are not permitted," the agreement reads.
The men who negotiated the agreement, James A. Baker III for Mr. Bush and Vernon Jordan for Mr. Kerry, did not return telephone calls Tuesday. But several people involved in the debate discussions said most of these details were demanded by the Republicans.
"None of this really matters," said Christine Anderson, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kerry's debate-negotiation team. "What matters are the issues that are going to be discussed, the questions George Bush needs to answer, the plans we're going to lay for the future. The rest is all details."
One new detail that Democrats involved in the process say was the Bush team's idea is having the commission and the moderators sign the document. Before, just the two campaigns signed. "At this point in time, we're not sure we will sign the agreement," said Frank J. Fahrenkopf, who has been the Republican co-chairman of the commission since its inception in 1987. "We've never done it before. It really is an agreement between the two parties."
Several of the journalists scheduled to moderate the debate expressed uncertainty about signing, which the agreement says they must do seven days before their scheduled debate "in order to evidence his or her understanding and acceptance of, and agreement to, the provisions hereof," or else the campaigns will pick someone else.
"I don't think that news people like the idea of signing onto documents negotiated by politicians,'' said Thomas E. Mann, a scholar at the Brookings Institution with expertise in debates.
Mark Wallace, Mr. Bush's deputy campaign manager, said such signatures were necessary because of the more detailed guidelines set out for the forum and the other debates.
"If you're going to have those real rules, I think you have to have the buy in from the moderators," Mr. Wallace said. "If they're going to be moderators to a presidential debate, it makes sense that they uphold the rules."
On Friday, the commission will determine which candidates meet its threshold of 15 percent support in five polls to qualify for the debates. President Bush and Mr. Kerry would clearly qualify; left on the sidelines would be the independent candidate Ralph Nader, whose poll numbers have been under 5 percent. After that, the commission said in a news release, it "will be pleased to finalize with the invited candidates debate ground rules and other technical matters," but will be "guided by its goal of providing the American people with informative debates."
Among the topics likely to come up are the timing lights. In previous debates, only the candidates and the moderators could see the lights signaling they had run out of time, but the Bush campaign pushed to have the lights visible to the audience and accompanied with audible cues, perhaps because of Mr. Kerry's penchant for long answers.
"The candidates are going to end up looking like game show hosts," one debate expert said.
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I also think that having everyone sign this 32-page document is absurd. How about you guys just have an old-fashioned debate? Does anyone know what the conditions placed on past debates were?
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Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam
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