Debates expose the hypocrisy of the campaigns

Debates have fallen out of favor in the election process.

Most House and Senate races seem to have one, a few may have scheduled two, but the idea of having multiple debates - usually arranged by media outlets in the districts - is really becoming a thing of the past. Some have none.

In my humble opinion, this is to the improvement of the electoral process – an opinion heavily reinforced by the performance of both candidates for governor last week. Increasingly, we are subjected only to the carefully crafted, sanitized, scripted gibberish thrown out to journalists by the campaign staff and the debates are no different.

Since it’s an election year, I’m teaching “campaigns and elections” this semester and stress to my budding campaign managers, finance officers and grassroots organizers that chief of their duties is to control the candidate and their every word. For example, never let your candidate wander around on their own – you never know what they might say or do. This goes double for anyone running for office for the first time. They get the sense that they are expected to treat the candidate less like an earnest seeker of public office and more like a drunken uncle who can’t be trusted to behave at Thanksgiving. They are likely correct.

“Unscripted” is the enemy of any campaign manager. Every word coming out of the candidate or the campaign needs to be examined from every side, up and down, scrutinized for possible fallout, examined for “gotcha” potential and carefully cleaned of all offence and danger before being placed near the candidate’s script. And the major problem is that when they do get the chance to run amuck, away from their handlers, candidates prove that they’re simply not very good at this stuff anymore.

This week’s debate between Governor Ron DeSantis and former Governor Charlie Crist laid bare the faults and issues inherent in the closely controlled environment. The moderator, hamstrung by the rules laid down by the candidates was nearly incoherent, but this was hardly her fault. The rules and definitions she was working with would have challenged Solomon. Both campaigns had apparently agreed to allow cheerleaders off camera, for the most part, but so loud as to make the responses inaudible above their shrieking approval of their candidate.

Before the drama, the candidates had been worked over in makeup by the ghost of Tammy Faye and appeared to be dripping in shiny wood finish or whatever that swill is that’s used for fake tans. Luckily, they did not stick together during the handshake, which was the last time either of them seemed to think the other was in the room.

They jabbered the lines spoon-fed to them for the past six months and more by their keepers - memorized and delivered in stone-faced seriousness. If either of them had actually burst into flames the other would likely have simply continued, stoic and straight-faced, to intone their stock speech as the other was assaulted by the stagehands and dragged off stage blazing, smoking and howling, to be doused with a hose.

Teddy White once said during the 1960 campaign, that we “sell candidates like detergent.” The problem now is that the rhetoric has become so shallow and worthless as to drive any discerning consumer to try washing with lye.

The time has probably come to finally admit that the debates we’re watching are a hindrance, not a help, to picking a likely candidate. These events degrade the office-seeker, expose the hypocrisy of the campaigns, and cheapen to dirt the fouled notion that any information given there is worth anything to anyone.

On Monday night, we started viewing the debate right after class, at 7 p.m. By 7:15, all but three students had politely, silently, and rapidly, run for the hills. And I do not blame them one bit.

R. Bruce Anderson is the Dr. Sarah D. and L. Kirk McKay Jr. Endowed Chair in American History, Government, and Civics at Florida Southern College and Miller Distinguished Professor of Political Science. He is also a columnist for The Ledger and political consultant and on-air commentator for WLKF Radio in Lakeland.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Debates expose the hypocrisy of the campaigns