Presidential Debate Analysis

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The United States presidential election of 2016 that is going to happen on November 8th has been an important issue for all the citizens to paid attention on for the past few months. The two most well-known candidates for the election of this year are Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton. Both of the candidates presented their thought and ideas to the voters through presidential debates. In addition, there are three presidential debates before the election. After watching the debates, I think the presidential debate format should be modify in order to articulate a better deliverable and understanding of each presidential candidates’ view and proposition. This essay will accomplish this objective by analyzing each debates, provide suggestions …show more content…

The first presidential debate uses a format that is more complicate than the second debate. In this format, the debate was break into six segments; each segment will have fifteen minutes. In these fifteen minutes, the candidates will have a chance to answer the question that the moderator asked. The moderator is the person who “acts as a neutral party who maintains the focus of the debate. Important skills include time management, organization, and the ability to communicate effectively” (Balle). During the segment, the candidates will have two minutes each to answer the question and ten minutes to respond to each other’s responds. While the first presidential debate used a complicate format, the second debate used a more simple and popular format, which is the town hall format. The town hall format originally started in 17th-century New England meeting houses, and invites everyone to the table, even those who perhaps shouldn’t be given the mic. The purpose of town hall format is for the people to agree on something that would benefit everyone, and the …show more content…

CPD did their best to ensure voters can understand the candidates. However, I still believe there are some parts of the debate format that can be improved. Firstly, there should be a plan for the candidates about the time issue. During the second presidential debate, it was obvious that two minutes was not enough for both candidates to state their thought on a certain issue. Compare with the first and third presidential debate, the second debate is missing the ten minutes for candidates to responds to their answers. As a result, the moderators had to remind the candidates several times before they stop speaking. I believe, have a plan ready for this type of situation can prevent the waste of time on asking candidates to move on and allow the citizens to ask more questions. Secondly, prepare someone who has more experience on crisis handling or good at improvising as moderator. As mentioned before, the second presidential debate has a serious issue on timing, and the major issue was because the moderator cannot stopped candidates from responding to each other. If the moderator could terminate the responses between the candidates when the next

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