Debates are literally pointless. In the Internet age, we don't even need them. This is not the 1960 election where the only image most people will have of the candidates is what they see on TV (and a lot of folks didn't even have TV that year). Politics in this country is nothing more than your old high school chums running for whatever office or whatever homecoming queen. The girl who is the prettiest or put out the most or has the biggest rack is going to win anyway. Nowadays nobody can say anything without Facebook blowing it sky high.
Furthermore, we have learned since Ford botched the question on Eastern Europe to simply regurgitate the best hits from the campaign trail. Too many moderators (Candy Crowley, Jim Lehrer) have the naive idea anyone wants to watch them. And the notion in this day and age that there are "undecided voters" in October is laughably absurd - if you're undecided then, you damn sure don't know enough to be able to "ask the candidate a question." Egomaniacs wanting to be on TV so they can tell their buddies how they "stumped" the candidate they hate.
It is a total waste of time and the pols never say much anyway. I can tell you right now how this whole campaign will go without even watching it:
1) The Republicans will nominate a half-Democrat, believing that crap about "appealing to the center" (gee, tell me how that worked for Dole, McCain, and Romney)
2) Whichever Democrat is nominated will be blasted as "the most liberal (whatever office) in the US (whatever)"
3) No matter what numbskull the Democrat VP is, it will be considered a stroke of genius - they could pick Quayle and the press would say, "They're showing great diversity reaching out to the right-wing illiterate vote."
4) No matter who the GOP Veep is, he will be blasted as the dumbest person on the planet (Agnew, Quayle, Cheney, Palin, Ryan) and "an extremist"
5) We'll hear about the war on women by the GOP and the war on Christianity by the Democrats, both having the barest relation to the truth at best
6) The country as a whole will lose no matter which leftist or half-leftist gets elected.
There - I just saved you the time watching it. The only real "surprise" might be if there's a Republican who can campaign as the Reagan/Bush43 sunny optimist and sound hopeful about the future. You'd think with 16 candidates at least one would be pretty decent.
but you'd be wrong.
And things aren't any better on the Democrats side, either. Hillary is a horrible candidate, Saunders is a socialist in the McGovern mold, and O'Malley isn't known outside the boundaries of Maryland anyway.
I don't know who the winner will be but I can damn sure tell you who the loser will be - those of us who have to live with the results.
