Talking Points

2007-07-25T17:08:00.000-07:00

I have yet to run any numbers myself, but someone commented to the WaPo that the calcs for CNN/YouTube thing were as follows;

	# of Times	# of Words	Words ÷ Times
Obama	14	2050	146
Clinton	12	1794	150
Edwards	12	1661	138
Biden	7	1019	146
Richardson	7	910	130
Dodd	8	1645	206
Kucinich	7	985	141
Gravel	7	580	83

Considering that each opportunity to speak was timed, it may be possible to extrapolate the number of minutes, but I don't have that data at this time and only have a commenter's submission at my fingertips. If anyone has any better numbers, similar information about previous debates from either party or a link which can be referenced, please post them to comments for reference.

Otherwise and if nothing else, I'll run the archives of the previous debates and try to get some kind of counts for each, sometime over the next few days.

This is a Non-Partisan Issue

2007-07-25T13:21:00.000-07:00

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post was on Tuesday's Newshour commenting on the CNN/YouTube debate, when he told Gwen Ifil;

You know, I actually think that, as I've watched these debates -- and this is the fourth Democratic one we've had already -- as I've watched them, the margin between the best performance and the worst performance gets smaller and smaller.

I felt like last night -- you know, I do a winners and losers column at WashingtonPost.com -- I had trouble picking losers, just because I thought everybody did pretty well. But the problem for people like Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd is that they really need a breakthrough, a big moment. And these debates haven't given them that yet.

I thought Dennis Kucinich did quite well last night. I thought Joe Biden did quite well. I thought Bill Richardson was better than he had been. And I thought Chris Dodd did well. But the problem is, what did we learn or see last night that fundamentally alters the dynamic, which is Clinton, Obama and possibly Edwards? I don't think we saw all that much that is going to make people who are watching think about this race in a different way.

Well, Mr Cillizza: How can one expect the media-defined second tier to have a breaktrough moment or alter the dynamic, when the supposed first tier gets almost twice as many opportunities to speak?

Unequal distribution of time has been a problem with most of the debates this primary season and it exists on both sides of the aisle. This is unfair and it does not provide the citizenry a chance to not only take an equal measure of all the candidates, but it also prevents their ideas from reaching the largest possible audience and our democracy is not being served.

Granted, there is no legal recourse to force the networks, sponsors, political parties and organizing committees to provide equal time to all qualified candidates, but there is the court of public opinion and that is why I urge everyone reading this post to sign the virtual petition and spread its address, far and wide.

Censorship can take many forms and among them is limiting the debate.

This post is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
All rebroadcasts of this specific wording must include a link to the petition or its blog.

Equal Time Petition - Progress Reports

Talking Points

This is a Non-Partisan Issue