Tonight’s debate between Carly Fiorina and Barbara Boxer was probably the worst debate I’ve ever seen in all my years of watching political debates.  Not on Fiorina’s part—she did a great job for her first general election, televised debate.  But Randy Shandobil, KTVU Channel 2 and the panel of journalists should collectively be ashamed of themselves.
 
Now, because this is a right-of-center blog, I’m sure that they may easily dismiss my observations as simply partisan, but they would be wrong.  Like most people, I want to see a fair, balanced exchange between the two major candidates running for one of the state’s most powerful jobs.  But what I saw was not a fair and balanced debate.  It was Shandobil, the SF Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci, KQED’s Scott Shafer & La Opinion’s Pilar Marrero piling on Fiorina while throwing generalized, softball questions to Boxer.  And not once, not twice, but over and over again. 

Take Marinucci’s first question — a tough question about supporting tax cut legislation but not “a teachers job bill,” questioning Fiorina: “How do you justify immediate health for the wealthiest of Americans but not for average Americans who might be out of a job and listening to this debate tonight?”
 
But when it was Marinucci’s turn to question Boxer, she made an anemic attempt to show how out of touch Boxer is by questioning why she told Brigadier General Michael Walsh of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to call her “senator” instead of ma’am during a senate hearing last June.  Really, that’s the best question one of the toughest political reporters in the state can ask?  Turns out, that was about the toughest question Boxer got all night.
 
All night long, Fiorina faced hard questions on wedge issues, designed to paint her as extreme.  She answered directly and well.  All night long, Boxer was lobbed softballs, made out of kittens and puppies.  One reporter/panelist asked her “was the cost of the war too much?  When is it time to say enough is enough?”  Another panelist asked her, “name a time you’ve ever disagreed with President Obama."  Are you kidding?
 
And Shandobil—one of the “most respected journalists in broadcast journalism” according to his KTVU bio—did his upmost to pile on to Fiorina at every opportunity.  Twice he asked Fiorina impromptu follow-up questions on wedge issues – guns and abortion, in what could only be explained as an effort to highlight issues where he must feel she is vulnerable.  She handled both very well.  His only impromptu question for Boxer was a softball, a joke:  “If the president doesn’t come up with a written time line [to get out of Afghanistan] as you’ve suggested he do, will you call him out on that?” 

The one time he cajoled the candidates to only answer the question posed, not to rebut previous issues, (a time-honored technique both were using), he did so immediately after a Fiorina answer, putting her on the spot.  He then allowed Boxer to go back to doing exactly the same thing, on her very next answer.  I’m not making this up. His greatest sin was the way he finished the debate, with his “let me just ask something real quick” question, which was to put Fiorina on the spot with an assault weapons question which he allowed Boxer to rebut but then never threw Boxer a tough “real quick” question to equal things out.  

Personally, if I were running for statewide office these days, I’d refuse to participate in these reporter-run debates.   Reporters have proven they are not very good at doing this, and tonight they reminded us how biased they can be. 

What does having reporters add to the value of the event?  If we are going to continue with this panel style, it should be a moderate reporter partnered with a left-leaning and right-leaning blogger, and the questions should be screened by a true bipartisan panel, because history has shown panelists generally don’t rise to the occasion, they sink to their bias. 

Better yet, I went back and found the question and answer session that Senator McCain and then-Senator Obama participated in with Rick Warren at Saddleback Church.  If you remember, each candidate answered the same question but did so in a personal one-on-one with Warren, filmed separately and aired back-to-back. It really gave each candidate an opportunity to relax, be themselves and answer questions about what they believe, rather use the time to attack their opponent.
 
I could go on and on about how poorly this debate was handled.  Carly Fiorina should be proud of her performance tonight—she did an excellent job while being piled on from all directions.  Shandobil and company cannot truly feel good about their performance.  Deep down, they must know that they gave Boxer a huge pass on her record (where were the tough questions on her out-of-touch-with-California’s-mainstream record, the failure of the stimulus package, on job creation during her party’s time in leadership, etc) and sold the voter’s short in their efforts to help Boxer.  “No,” they’ll scoff, “we were just doing our job.”  No, you weren’t.  If you had done your job, you would have schooled yourself in the Fiorina campaign’s opposition research on Boxer as much as you did in Boxer’s on Fiorina.  No, tonight you simply proved to those watching that in fact the media is nearly incapable of truly being thoughtful, objective and non-partisan.  Fiorina did a great job, far better than expected for a citizen candidate, against a stacked deck.  It was a disappointing performance on the journalist’s part. 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.