So the title of this article is pretty telling. In the ninth presidential debate last night, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz had at it, partially in Spanish. Cruz barked something about Rubio's campaign that was apparently false. Rubio came back (rightfully so) and accused Cruz of always telling lies to push down his opponents. This actually seems to be kind of accurate, especially considering the deal at the Iowa caucus, where during the voting, Cruz spread a rumor that Ben Carson was dropping out and will be supporting him (Cruz) instead.
I'm not going to lie, these debates can get pretty heated and therefore pretty interesting. If a one of them were held at a high school I would imagine there would be endless exclamations of, "Shade!" from the audience. We've had two primaries so far and as a result the candidates are dropping out, like flies it seems. Currently, we're down to 6 Republican candidates and two Democratic. I was thinking... back in the history we've studied so far, there haven't been dozens of debates before the election. It seems to be individual campaigning. So I looked it up, and on September 26, 1960, the first presidential debate was held between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. This was a nationally televised event which helped spread the popularity of the election and helped instigate new precedents, such as how TV can play a major part in elections as well as how political elections would go about for years to come.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/14/politics/marco-rubio-ted-cruz-lies/index.html
I think that these debates are very informative and are super important for voters to watch. They reveal what candidates are like under pressure, and they help start a conversation about each candidate's opinions. However, I do believe that sometimes they can be very petty, and the candidates can start discussing very surface level issues. But this says more about the candidates than the debate forum itself.
ReplyDeleteMatthew Homsher 9th- The use of television on those first debates won Kennedy the Presidency because he looked better on screen. That is the other purpose of the debates, for voters to decide who looks more Presidential.
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