With all the important issues at stake in the presidential and vice presidential debates, it takes a small and pettifogging disposition to be concerned with a matter of fairness. But since John Rawls talks so much about procedural justice, and since no enlightened professor today would dare label John Rawls a pettifogger, I am not embarrassed to raise a procedure question in the conduct of these debates.
There is one scarce resource in these debates which is both measureable and important: time. No wonder that the participants fight over it. Give one of the participants more time, and he gets an unfair procedural advantage.
I had the feeling while watching the three debates so far (I include the Vice-presidential debate) that Romney and Ryan had taken more time than Obama and Biden. But I was surprised in each case, after checking the data, to discover that my impressions were in error. In the first debate, Obama had almost five minutes more time than Romney, Biden (excluding his smiles) had a minute more than Ryan (even subtracting for his H2O intake), and in the debate last night Obama had about three minutes more than Romney. I will let the fact checker dig up the exact figures and then run the percentages, but by any measure it adds up overall to a very considerable advantage for the Democrats. One could even “price” it: how much would someone have to pay for a minute of airtime with an audience of over 50 million viewers?
The facts speak for themselves. So why the initial impression, at least on my part, that the Republicans had taken more time? The reason, I think, is that Mitt Romney had to ask or fight for the time from the moderators. This was a double disadvantage for Romney, who got less time but appeared a bit forward in having to demand it.
The imbalance here is the fault, if anyone, of the moderators—doesn’t the buck stop with them? But contrary to a likely conservative suspicion, I am guessing that it had less to do with any political bias, if there is one, on the part of Jim or Candy, than with the understandable dilemma that it is harder to cut off or interrupt the President of the United States than a challenger. There is that old thing of the aura of the office, and it probably operates unconsciously. (As or Joe Biden, the “aura” dimension admittedly rubs off pretty quickly; but there is no human force I can imagine that could ever stop him from getting his say in, and then some.)
So what to do about this problem? There is a simple solution, and the folks who run the debates ought to adopt it immediately. And with apologies to some of my conservative readers, this solution comes from France, where it was used in their presidential debate. Here it is: You have a digital clock visible to the participants and the audience that gives a running total of the minutes used by each candidate. The candidate who has fallen behind in minutes used can take the time—I will add not by interrupting–to bring himself up to something close to equality. No need to plead with or to fight the moderator. It’s an obvious instance, to which all who operated behind a veil of ignorance would readily consent, of exercising one’s right to justice as fairness. Rawlsians of the world unite!
October 17th, 2012 | 9:43 am
The issue of how much time each candidate gets to speak is trivial compared to what questions are actually asked. Several of the questions last night were the political equivalent of “So, Governor Romney, have you stopped beating your wife?”
October 17th, 2012 | 9:56 am
PS. I want to clarify that whining about the moderator (as the Dems laughably did for a full week after the first debate) is counterproductive and pointless. Ditto for the questions, although the fact is that several of the questions were liberal-oriented questions from liberal-oriented questioners. Which is fine, but it’d be nice to have had ANY that were specifically conservative-oriented from conservative-oriented questioners.
October 17th, 2012 | 10:52 am
I certainly agree with Jim’s French remedy and Brian’s complaint about at least one conservative question on, say, religious freedom or ROE, a question framed for a conservative response.
October 17th, 2012 | 12:39 pm
What I really wish for is a debate without a moderator – Just one opening question, and then the candidates battle it out.
October 17th, 2012 | 12:58 pm
I think Brian has perhaps the more important problem, though the one more difficult to solve, since these questions become matters of opinion. There is less difference of opinion about whether a minute is a minute; last I looked, despite partisan polarization, there were no liberal minutes or conservative minutes, just minutes. But on Brian’s point about last night, there could be two sources of the problem. One is where this debate was held. Who is an independent voter in Long Island? I doubt if the medium independent/undecided there is much like the independent/undecided voter in, say, Missouri. So there was a selection bias in this event. On top of that, Candy had full discretion in choosing from the 80 or so questions that were submitted. So there is a good chance that there was some additional selection bias added at this stage. Would be nice if we could get all of the submitted questions and see….jwc
October 17th, 2012 | 2:57 pm
Candy wasn’t as bad as many conservatives are suggesting. So she messed up on the Libya Rose Garden statement, but has today admitted the mistake. Big deal.
She never took offense at Romney’s crowding for more time. She threaded the needle between working with the candidates and keeping them on task.
Clarification wise, she pushed Romney on the AK question, but she look at the clarification question she gave Obama on gasoline prices: “Is this the new normal?” Ouch.
The biggest problem is what Jim states, in both debates: without clear procedural rules vis-a-vis TIME (format you arguably have to leave more flexible), some kind of imbalance is inevitable. We conservatives have a right to demand 6-8 extra minutes for the third debate. So in the future, clock it.
October 17th, 2012 | 6:12 pm
I’m part of the Candy Crowley Condemnation Club (though with sympathy for her too.) I also think that partisanship plays a larger role than Dr. Ceaser. If Santorum became President through some…events and found himself debating Clinton or Biden, I think the moderators would develop a populist sensibility when it came to stopping a mic-hogging chief executive. But I think the effect is mostly subconscious.
October 18th, 2012 | 5:40 am
I want to agree with Ceasar… but isn’t Rawls slightly more in the philosophical camp than than the procedural/technocratic camp?
That is Rawls is about getting broad consensus for something that is more a moral value than an objective fact. i.e. Rawls is looking for broad agreement on principle. The more procedural/technocratic camp hammers out objective questions of law and fact first. I think you might get some of them to sign off on the french system.
On the other hand I think some of the “Rawlsian” technocrats would be the most likely to disagree with this system. On the one hand there is a “New York Minute” (and the debate was in New York.) So there is the potentiality for a phenomenology of time that a Rawlsian (an extremely patient/philosophical moderator) is willing to consider. What if the independent in New York is turned on by candidates following the culture and speaking fast, while the fella from Missouri is put off by such a tempo? (should these habits of thinking be the material element that downs out or exists along side the subject matter itself?)
The Rawlsian returns as many times as necessary to a hypothetical veil of ignorance, to do so on only one front would be to ignore the latent inequalities. (It is possible they just like billable hours…so say the New York Minute technocrats.) (In fact time as money is a big question within the “meta” of mediation… The Rawlsian mediator typically will not bill by the hour.)
For example: Rather than agreeing on overall time.
Behind a veil of ignorance one would want the questions asked to both candidates to be of similar difficulty. Presumably with time allocated to the difficulty of the question.
Might it not be unfair to allow a candidate to dismiss the difficulty of a given question, brush over it as if it was a softball with an grin…and move on to deploy his time most effectively in a sudden burst of power?
For example one could immagine candidate A:
Each Candidate 3 questions:
Lighting round(binary…short answer): Yes, No. 10 seconds 100 questions.
2 Softball 3 minutes.
2 Mid 5 minutes.
1 complex 10 minutes.
While in such a format you could measure “time”…. But couldn’t a candidate answer all the questions as softballs, or even lighting round one liners…and save up for a “money” speech at the end?
So a position on say no carry-over-minutes isn’t a single road-trip behind a veil of ignorance. (unless of course the moderator who is trying to use a Rawlsian system is charging by the hour…in which case he might get sued by the technocrats for malpractice, and the entire effort does not work).
Of course if the moderator or lawyer is charging enough per hour…it does act as a pretty big stick for talking fast.
So the issue for Justice as fairness is something more like this.
Not all questions are favorable in terms of softballs and roses for all candidates. Some questions should make the candidate sweat a bit. A moderator that allows for smooth transitions and escapes (allows the candidate to “cherry pick” time-use.)
“will let the fact checker dig up the exact figures and then run the percentages, but by any measure it adds up overall to a very considerable advantage for the Democrats. One could even “price” it: how much would someone have to pay for a minute of airtime with an audience of over 50 million viewers?”
We agree to let this in as relevant. But note that the question of who the extra airtime favors is black and white, but not a one stop shop argument (that is this factor is not fungible/alienable on this nexis).
For example we submit the Romney “gaffe” concerning the 47%. Certainly this is Romney airtime with an audience, but it has an objective economic value that has been purchased by Obama. We also stipulate that Obama had a negative economic return on his so called “free-adversing” first debate.
The principle of no-carry over minutes thus means no ability to cherry pick, and understanding when silence (and giving away airtime minute) is preferable than stepping it in it. The principle of no-carry over minutes also comports logically with the federal rule of evidence concerning the presumption of guilt when no refutation is given.
For various reasons I don’t think the Rawlsians would take such a view of time.
So underbidding your bad minutes (by remaining silent/softballing your difficult questions), and building up minutes for your strong suit (as might be allowed under the french system) is generally discouraged as cheating.
But basically the point is that political candidates will only pay for cherry picked minutes of airtime. So the fact that it is a debate and not a commerical is quite relevant to the economics of the airtime.
Of course since this is America, we can have multiple philosophies and brands for debate formats.
I suggest that rather than calling it “French”, you give credit to AT&T for inventing “roll-over” minutes. Design the format and see if you can host it for 2016.
Of course picking on either Candy or Jim as moderators really boils down to an attack against these servicemarks.
Since the business of america is always minting various forms of exceptionalism/trademark…this discussion might be more directly related to the economy than some might think.
October 18th, 2012 | 9:28 am
ok, john lewis, I admit it. I never really could get thru that book, which could easily be the most unreadable book of political philosophy ever written. Kudos to you for a funny and insightful commentary.
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