There is a myth that the Internet and other technologies bring voters closer to the candidates. Actually, technology brings voters closers to campaigns?not necessarily to candidates.
Debates can close this gap ? but, by design, they often fail.
Continue ReadingDuring that debate the moderators showed a video of a man dressed as a snowman asking the candidates a question about global warming. Rather than shedding light on the issue, this video simply became a unhelpful diversion.
When snowmen ask questions, debates fail. When word clouds draw more attention than the substance of answers, debates fail. They fail because the organizers often confuse new technologies with better technologies. They are often just unnecessary distractions.
There has been a lot talk about how campaigns are reaching out to voters. President Barack Obama?s 2008 campaign built its own social network. Rep. Michele Bachmann?s target web ads have been heralded as a new way to reach just the right voters. Campaigns run twitter accounts, cut slick movie-like commercials, and promise to engage directly with the public.
But these advances connect voters to campaign organizations ? and only candidates can win. A candidate must decide which economic plan to pursue to lower unemployment. Or decide whether to send troops into harm?s way.
Televised debates offer voters the opportunity to assess would-be leaders. Ads are edited and poll-tested; tweets can be (and usually are) written by staffers. Unless a voter donates a lot of money, or moves to Iowa or New Hampshire, they are unlike to meet a presidential candidate.
Democracy presupposes that voters make an informed choice. Through the election process voters assess who a candidate is, and what they stand for, if one is going to trust them to govern. We learn not just what they think, but how they think.
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