There is a debate underway in the Republican Party (the RNC) on the rules governing the primary elections and caucuses and their translation of their results into delegates to the party’s convention. One side argues that the rules are unfair, in that the popular vote is not being mapped proportionately into the delegate selection process, … Continue reading The Rules of Real World Games & the RNC
GOP
Opportunities for CNN and Candidates in the First Democratic Party Debate
Five candidates are preparing for the CNN debate to be held in Las Vegas on 13 October 2015: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, but also Martin O'Malley, Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee. There are two likely outcomes. The first is an opportunity to actually debate the issues. The previous Fox and CNN debates failed to engage … Continue reading Opportunities for CNN and Candidates in the First Democratic Party Debate
#CNNDebate Needs to Focus Candidates on the Issues, Not Each Other
Bad news heading into the #CNNDebate. CNN is strategising on ways to get the candidates 'interacting' with each other - which is what a debate should indeed entail (unlike the first Fox News-Facebook disaster). However, trying to generate arguments among the candidates, which seems to be the strategy, is different from getting the candidates to … Continue reading #CNNDebate Needs to Focus Candidates on the Issues, Not Each Other
An Open Appeal to #CNNDebate Moderators – Focus on the Issues
I have been critical of the first GOP debate organized by Fox News and Facebook, despite its record-breaking audience. I’ve also written a number of posts about how the broadcast failed to focus on the issues. Given the excitement building around the CNN Debate on 16 September, let me make a simple appeal to the … Continue reading An Open Appeal to #CNNDebate Moderators – Focus on the Issues
CNN and GOP Need to Do Their Arithmetic
CNN and GOP Need to Do Their Arithmetic Those complaining about the way CNN is selecting candidates for the main event of the second GOP debate have a very good point. I’ve written before about the mistakes being made by Fox News in trying to conduct a live broadcast of a 17 person debate, but … Continue reading CNN and GOP Need to Do Their Arithmetic
Grading the Fox News-Facebook GOP Presidential Debate Spectacle by Bill Dutton and Tracy Westen
The televised and Facebooked GOP debate was a disaster. The clear loser of the debates was the media, particularly Fox News and Facebook, for putting together a media event that made a mockery of televised debates. It clearly drew a large audience (over 23 million viewers), and gave some greater national visibility to some of … Continue reading Grading the Fox News-Facebook GOP Presidential Debate Spectacle by Bill Dutton and Tracy Westen
A Dirty Dozen: 12 Reasons Candidates and Networks Fail to Move Presidential Debates Online by Tracy Westen and Bill Dutton
At a time when the 16 GOP candidates are preparing for televised debates on August 6, 2015, in which each candidate might get about 5-10 total minutes of air time, without significant time for rebuttals or follow-up questions, it is appropriate to ask: Why aren’t the debates moving online? The Internet could provide a platform … Continue reading A Dirty Dozen: 12 Reasons Candidates and Networks Fail to Move Presidential Debates Online by Tracy Westen and Bill Dutton