Barack Obama in Raleigh, NC

This site has been more or less abandoned, sadly. I just felt this clip deserved to be on here. An actual politician commenting on the deplorable state of the debates, something our class had been discussing for months! Check this out. Barack Obama in Raleigh, NC

WANTED (Dead or Alive): Modern Political Debate

While I can’t say that I was overly thrilled with or impressed by Rick Tyler’s discussion, I was intrigued by what he had to say about political debate reform. But before I delve into his propositions, let me begin by affirming my overwhelming dislike for the modern concept of a political debate. Every time I sit down to watch a debate (which is rare, sporadic, and generally only within a month of an election), I find that by the end of the night I’m just as disappointed as I’d expected. Rarely, if ever, do I gain insight into a candidate’s character, or learn something about them that I couldn’t have read, verbatim, from their campaign website. Usually each candidate is allowed so many seconds to respond to a carefully crafted and premeditated question that doesn’t come from their opponent, but rather, from an unaffiliated third party. Is this crazy, or am I?? I want to see the candidates and the candidates alone conversing with each other, asking the tough questions, and being capable of coming up with the clever answers on the spot. Leave the mediator at home, please. Cut the strict time limits and the tedious rules. I want to see a raw presentation of the person who could potentially be the next “leader of the free world,” (as Tyler referred to it through thinly veiled conservativism).

This brings me to Tyler’s theory of debate reform. Though he devoted a shockingly small portion of his speech to this topic (the drawings on the blackboard didn’t suffice for me), I thought he made some valid points. First of all, I agree, to an extent, that political debate between members of the same party can seem redundant and overtly liberal or conservative. I do not, however, think that this type of debate should be eliminated from the campaign process altogether. I think that this type of debate is fundamental and crucial for each party in determining who is best suited for the race, but I think there is definitely room for reform. Tyler went on to suggest that political debate should consist of one candidate from each party, on a stage, partaking in a healthy, unscripted, unsupervised debate. I definitely agree with this theory, and I look forward to the day that this debate takes place. However, I want to add to this dream and suggest that every candidate, and yes that includes candidates of the somewhat taboo parties such as the Libertarian or Green Party, be a participant in our nation’s notorious prime time debates. I think that all candidates, regardless of the status of their membership in mainstream parties, are deserving of our country’s attention and time. Needless to say, I hope to see in 2008 a variety of candidates in the debate scene, and with any luck, a lot less of the unnecessary mediator.

Rick Tyler's ideas

Rick Tyler, spokesman for former Speaker Newt Gingrich, has some excellent ideas on how to fix America's broken system. His lecture in class today was extremely enlightening and set the ground work for some great ideas that we can implement that could affect the political system.
Mr. Tyler's comments on the media's role in debates are well heeded. Instead of allowing the news outlets to focus on pointless news stories: Britney, Paris, etc, we should instead force them onto coverage of actual issues. There are several ways we, as students an bloggers, can achieve this. The number 1 way is to boycott the news networks and begin a grassroots initiative to keep the boycott strong. If successful, this movement would force change in the way news, and political debates are covered. Without viewers, networks would lack the ability to advertise and therefore make money. Viewers would only come back once coverage was changed. Instead of letting the media control our news, we should begin to take steps to influence the media so they actually cover things of worth.
Mr. Tyler also suggested the use of blind polls in order to actually determine which candidates have a stance on the important issues in society. This is a much better approach to determine candidate positions than our current form of debate. What we are given now are simple sound bites and rehearsed speeches that actually contain nothing of substance. These polls, on the back of one-on-one bipartisan debates, would be a much better value for the American people than our current system. If the media and candidates were able to implement this system, we would be one step closer to fixing our broken political system.
Though he spoke about a great deal about other things, these two topics are of supreme importance. If we change the way in which news is expressed, and the manner in which the candidates debate, we will be that much closer to fixing the broken American political system. Mr. Tyler’s observances as to the problems of modern political society have laid the groundwork for a plethora of ideas that we can implement in order to affect change. All we have to do is run with it.

Conservatism, Debate Reform, and FedEx

Guest speaker Rick Tyler spoke with Dr. Dana Walker’s Dissident Media class at American University on Oct. 19, 2007.

Some background info…

Rick Tyler currently serves as the press spokesman for former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.

He is a conservative political strategist, and senior partner at Chesapeake Associates, a professional campaign consulting firm.

Tyler was the Executive Director for the Maine Republican Party for five years before moving to the nation’s capitol, where he is now the Director of Media Relations for Gingrich Communications, according to his website.

Let the live blogging begin.

“It’s not often that a member of Newt Gingrich’s staff gets willingly invited to talk to a college class,” Tyler said, greeting a class of almost 30 laptop-armed students.

He took no time getting started. Asking the class how we decide who to vote for, he received various answers from the class. “We go online,” someone said. “Television,” said another. Tyler explained in his day there were only four major networks, compared to today’s common choice of 500 available satellite channels.

Tyler said there is probably less than 10% of the entire American population paying attention to the presidential election. Keep in mind this blog is coming from a university where nearly every student has a political opinion.

Obviously this statistic doesn’t apply to anyone in the room, Tyler said.

He compared the percentage of his life that’s dedicated to politics compared to that of “normal people.” Ninety percent of his life, he claimed, was encompassed by all things political.

“You’re weird!” Tyler said to the students who claimed they watched Sunday morning talk shows, rather than sleep, watch football, or play golf like “normal people.” He was trying to reiterate that most of the nation doesn’t care most of the time about politicians or political issues.

On the topic of television, Tyler recalled the first-ever televised presidential debate – Nixon v. Kennedy. This debate took place where they now do the Meet the Press with Tim Russert, he said.

“What do you think is wrong with today’s current political debate?” Tyler asked the class.

“It’s too rigid and lifeless…They just give the answers they know the voters want to hear,” replied a student.

“You think people can see through that?” Tyler asked, “I do too.”

Tyler criticized the current debate structure, describing it as unproductive and “ridiculous.”

“What’s your answer on Iraq? Thirty seconds.” The buzzer rings faster than you can say “Uh… well…where do I begin?”

What’s his solution to the rehearsed, rapid-fire, sound byte-laden debates today?

He mentioned that his boss, Newt Gingrich, proposed that two candidates get on stage and talk it out in an anything-goes style forum. If they’re from opposing political parties—great. He also briefly mentioned Newt’s NNN plan, which is discussed further down in this post.

“I’d love to see bipartisan debates. If you put a bunch of republican/democratic candidates in a room full of republican/democratic voters they sound like CrAzY right-/left-wing fanatics!!” he said.

On the subject of registered independent voters, Tyler claimed they “have no voice.” He said they have to wait for the “crazy people” to make up their minds between candidates, before an independent voter can have his or her own choice.

As a registered independent, I don’t react well to this statement. Tyler spoke in front of a class that is structured to force students to have their own voice. The term “dissident,” as in Dissident Media, in itself reflects a minority that do not associate with the mainstream press.

To say someone doesn’t have a voice because they don’t associate with one of the two major parties? I don’t know about that. I understood what he meant, that we need to restructure the debate system to give undecided voters a better opportunity to decide between candidates, but he could’ve worded that more eloquently.

Tyler also spoke of newsworthiness. “Does anyone remember what the media was covering on September 11, 2001?” After a few hints, no one in the audience could recall that this was the summer Chandra Levy went missing. That was to be expected (it was over six years ago).

Newsworthiness is highly influenced by a struggle for ratings, Tyler said, “Why be afraid of freedom? I’d like to see no limits.”

If you’re a candidate, you have the weakest position to define your campaign, Tyler stated.

Tyler then advocated for transparency in government. Right now, campaigns are financed by "bundlers," organizations with names like “Voters for a Better America.” Does anyone actually know where this money is coming from with a name like that?

“I love the five dollar voter.” Big donators are just buying influence, which they get through access.

Tyler asked a number of questions about our lives in a technological age, including ones on floppy disks, records, and rotary phones. Doing so provided a comparison between today's world and the one of only a couple decades ago. Not that this topic needed addressing to a class where nearly every student had a laptop, complete with wireless Internet access, in front of him or her.

This was taken almost directly from Newt Gingrich’s speech at the National Press Club, which is available at the AU library for any AU students reading this. Tyler exemplified the ridiculousness of the fact that FedEx can track about 20 million packages a day, to six-sigma accuracy. Whereas the Federal government can’t track 11 million illegal aliens? Newt Gingrich’s suggested solution: send each illegal alien a package through FedEx or UPS. If that doesn’t get you laughing, check your pulse.

Gingrich calls his debate reform proposal the “Nine Nineties at Nine” plan. Namely, nine candidates speak for ninety minutes every Sunday for nine weeks before the election.

According to Tyler, this plan would allow the candidates to talk about a range of issues for longer periods of time. The debate topics would be chosen by the candidates themselves. This brings us to the question of how do the candidates choose which topics they should discuss?

“Dan Rather essentially got fired by a blogger! Think about that,” Tyler said.

Tyler maintained that the chance a citizen has today of bringing an issue to the attention of the Speaker of the House is much greater, mostly through online blogging, than it was when Gingrich was Speaker. Now, by means of the Internet, voters have more control over which issues get the most attention.

Then the floor opened to questions, of which I include only one.

“What has caused this degenerative debate structure?” one student asked.

Tyler’s answers were money, the financing of campaigns, and the competitive nature of the news media, which has focused people on trivia.

“I think the media has done a terrible job at articulating what people actually get,” Tyler claimed after he explained that every voter only wants to know what he or she will get by electing a candidate.