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Wow… I forgot to say “Happy Birthday!” to Ryan. Hope you tie on a good one, buddy! Your “Mormon” conscience will heal a hell of a lot faster than your liver will, I’m sure.

While I’m back in “post-mode”, I may as well keep going, right?

There’s a blurb on the TV’s in the break room concerning Obama versus Clinton and their respective plans to reform healthcare. Just a fluff piece, with no depth or actual content offered… simply another opportunity to put faces on TV for the whole country to see and associate with hot-topics before November.

Do you know what this nation REALLY needs? Debate.

That’s it… that simple. Real, honest debate.

Imagine a venue that allowed the Democratic nominee and the GOP nominee to go face-to-face with the simple goal of explaining their position on specific topics. If an objective moderator could be found that could pry answers from a reluctant nominee, all the better, but it isn’t as needed as the venue itself.

Topics could be as general as the Federal Budget (about as broad a topic as you can get in American politics), or as specific as health care, the war in Iraq, terror, the economy… the options are nearly endless.

A question is asked, and each candidate gets two minutes to respond. This response is followed by questions and/or comments FROM a candidate TO a candidate, with a minute to ask, and another two minutes to respond. The advantage is that this format is impossible to script, at least after the initial questions are asked, and that the viewing audience will see just how ready the candidate is to respond to a moderator AND their opponent.

Look at the most significant debates in modern history, and you’ll see that the face-offs that occurred are the ones people remember… and that equates to VOTES, ladies and gentlemen, pure and simple.

Reagan and Bush in the Nashua Debates in ’80 is a great example (and one of Jambo’s favorites)… but an even better one would be the Vice Presidential Debate of the ’92 election. If you recall, Quayle, Gore and Stockdale were on television for a live debate… and Stockdale was the unquestioned loser with the viewing audience (although the live audience seemed to love him). The problem was, Stockdale was never given a list of the questions that were going to be asked, while Quayle and Gore were… as much as 8 days of study and preparation compared to Admiral Stockdale’s 22 minutes while they applied make-up to his face.

Look, I am not saying Perot would have won had the debate gone better for Stockdale… of course I don’t think that. But to say that the field was level and fair to all is simply unsupportable. What possible purpose can that kind of biased action (even if there was no ill intent) serve in a televised debate?

Every single debate I have seen in this election cycle (to date, anyway) has been canned questions that are next to impossible to answer with any detail, or “planted” questions intended to sway an audience rather than educate an audience.

When is Obama or Clinton going to have to answer the tough questions? When is McCain going to be given the opportunity to ask the tough questions? When do we get to see Hillary or Obama asking McCain to defend his position on Iraq, or lower taxes? When do the Dems answer Mac’s questions about who is going to pay for universal health care? Who better to ask these questions than the opponent? Who better to answer than the candidate?