Obama Wants LINCOLN-DOUGLAS debates?

The AP reports today that David Plouffe, Barack Obama's campaign manager, initially responded to John McCain's proposal for a series of 10 "town hall" style meetings with voters and the two candidates by saying the Obama campaign would prefer (in the AP reporter's words) "a less-structured, lengthier exchange more in line with the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates" (emphasis added).

Who is he kidding here? As the AP story notes, "[i]n the Lincoln-Douglas debates, held seven times during Abraham Lincoln's losing Senate campaign against Stephen Douglas in Illinois in 1858, a candidate spoke for an hour, the other for an hour and a half, and the first candidate was allowed a half-hour rebuttal." Neil Postman used these debates as a prime example to illustrate the change from a word-based culture to an image-based culture that we have experienced primarily as a result of . . . television. His 1985 book is "Amusing Ourselves to Death", and you should definitely turn off the TV and pick it up if you haven't already.

Postman's focus on television brings us smack up against what's wrong with Plouffe's comments: can you even begin to IMAGINE a THREE HOUR presidential debate with only two breaks/speaker transitions? Senator Obama gives a fantastic speech; in my view, as good as anyone we've seen in national politics since Ronald Reagan. But A FULL HOUR? TELEVISED? Granted, he would probably outperform Senator McCain, who understandably prefers the "town hall" format given his lack of ability standing behind a lecturn, but most Americans would switch the channel or plug in their ipods after about twenty minutes at most.

As to the Lincoln-Douglas format being "less-structured", I don't know what to make of that other than to chalk it up to historical ignorance.

So skip the presidential debates and read Neil Postman instead!