NARROW DEBATES.

NARROW DEBATES. I posted here, about how the format of American debates prevents candidates from developing extended arguments. Here is an interesting interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin in which she uses a wealth of historical examples to support her view that Presidents should present a broad vision of where the country should go. She says, “The next president has to be able to express a sense of what America can be, what America has been in the past, and what it is not now. It has to be overarching….” She points out that the format of the debates make it hard for the candidates to deal with large issues, “The way that questions get framed in these debates; they’re talking in smaller and smaller dimensions.”