The Debates: That Empty Feeling

Posted on Nov 1, 2012

Moyers & Company

What did we not learn about the condition of our country over the course of four presidential debates? Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, and Marty Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center at USC, assess the debates with Bill Moyers. Later, Neil Barofsky, former special inspector general of the TARP bailout program, describes the obstacles to banking reform.

Kaplan cuts to the chase of the predicament faced by voters in weighing the candidates based on the debates.

“ ... The lack of an answer to who sacrifices what is only the beginning of an endless list that for me is a reason to be disappointed, not just in the debates, but in the entire campaign,” he said. “I want to find out about things that are important, about plutocracy taking over democracy, the widening gulf between the powerful and the powerless, Wall Street, global warming—on and on.

“At most, they made cameo appearances during the debate. ... ”

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

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