Will you be watching the Democratic presidential candidates debate tonight?
The Connecticut Mirror’s Viewpoints section would like to hear your assessment of what you saw, who you thought made the most sense, whether the candidates touched on the right national themes or any other observations you might like to share.
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I thought it was awful. Ten candidates, 60 seconds to respond and 30 seconds for follow-up, which is ridiculously little time, even if the candidates were inclined to give a direct response (which sometimes they didn’t). Too many times they tried to answer a question asked of another candidate and not asked of them. The moderators said they would be diligent about time, but things didn’t quite go that way. Some people took longer than 60 seconds and couldn’t be shut down, some kept interrupting others, talking over each other. It seemed quite often that the moderators threw up their hands when they couldn’t shut things down. Some were held more firmly to the time limit than others. Tulsi Gabbard got very few questions from the moderators. Most of the questions went to Warren, Booker, Castro, Klobuchar, and O’Rourke. The candidates did not often get asked the same question, so we didn’t hear all of them explain their positions on the same issue. So to me it wasn’t really a “debate”.
I won’t be watching any debates (Red or Blue) until the field of candidates has been whittled down to a sensible number.