The worst job in America on Wednesday was trying to moderate the second Republican debate. With seven candidates on stage struggling for air time, the moderators, Dana Perino, Stuart Varney and Ilia Calderón, did a creditable job under impossible conditions. They asked the right questions but couldn’t stop the candidates from talking over each other or returning to previous questions which was they wanted to answer but hadn’t been asked. The moderators’ job was like being the referee with seven boxers in the ring.
None of the fighters won, and none failed. They all put forward their best arguments in the sliver of time they had for each question. Unfortunately for voters trying to decide among them, that sliver wasn’t enough to say more than canned slogans. There were simply too many voices on stage to give each of them more time. With most of them polling in single digits, they knew this might be their last chance to make their case before being tossed out of the ring.
When the hubbub died down and the TV lights were dimmed, the debate had changed nothing
Even the strongest candidates didn’t have time to flesh out important positions on major policy questions, to say much more than ‘I did it right in my home state’ and ‘Joe Biden – bad’.
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