 Politicians are notoriously hard to nail down. Some are worse than others and it even seems that those who are inclined to give straight answers don't last long in politics. Maybe it is the nature of the beast. However, voters need to have straight answers in order to make the best decision. The more important the election, the more people want to have solid information.
Some argue that the upcoming 2004 Presidential Election (in the USA) is one one of the most important elections in recent USA history. A large percentage of Americans are angry at President Bush for the Iraqi war, the economy, and overly conservative stands on moral issues. These people hope that Kerry will address these issues in a decidedly non-Bush way. They are hoping Kerry will stop the bleeding of American values at the hand of an ultra-conservative adminstration. On the other hand, a large percentage of Americans praise President Bush for his handling of Iraq, the economy, and his stand on moral issues. These people hope to see Bush continue in the office and continue to rescue America from the moral decay that has been growing over the last couple of decades. In short, each side sees this election as a pivotal point in modern Amercian history.
With this much at stake people want to nail the politicians down. No slippery answers to questions. No avoiding questions. Just straight, honest answers. Both sides of the fence want this.
Here's a proposal. There will be a series of Presidential debates in a few weeks. If it's like the last election there will be various types of debates: standard, townhall, etc. How about a "Yes/No" debate? The rules are very simple. The moderator asks a question and each candidate is required to answer "Yes" or "No". No other responses are allowed.
Clearly the difficulty here is the nature and wording of the questions. Questions such as "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" aren't allowed. These are easy to identify. But the political bent of the person creating the questions can be subtle and even the most well-intentioned author will likely add some bias.
Candidates are likely not willing to expose themselves to this vulnerability. Instead they can be included in the question creation process. A group of news media representatives creates a first round list of about 200 questions. This list is given to each of the participating candidates. Each candidate has veto power to kill 50 questions. If a candidate kills a question it is not included in the list. Each candidate also has a half-veto on all of the other questions. If two or more candidates half-veto a question, it is killed.
The resulting list of questions is used for the debate. During the actual debate the order of the questions is random (maybe the questions can be grouped topically and then random selection is made from that group) and the first candidate to answer is randomly selected.
This style of debate puts the politicians in an incredible hot spot. They probably wouldn't be comfortable with this. But ultimately the elected officials are supposed to be working for the people. Would this help the average American citizen be more informed when making an election decision? Absolutely.
Personally, I don't expect to ever see this sort of debate simply because the people who would have to create it are not inclined to. But with each new election I always wish we could see something like this. I would be much more comfortable about making my decision.
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