I want to comment on a couple of issues relating to the Debate because I feel it is important to speak out about it. I have had some inside information about how this debate was conducted and I think that CNN and those who organized this debate have a responsibility to answer for the way it was conducted. It was clear at the CNN Nevada Debate on November 15th that CNN was not unbiased or impartial in how they conducted the "debate" or in their post debate analysis. I give CNN an F on how they conducted this debate, and I will detail why.
You may have noticed that there was an obvious audience bias in favor of Sen. Hillary Clinton and often times an audience bias against Sen. Edwards and Sen. Obama. It was clear when Clinton gave her answers the audience was screaming and clapping, but on several occasions Barack Obama, John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich were actually booed and interrupted by protesters. There is actually a logical reason for this kind of not-so-subtle bias in the audience and in the moderators, and I have some inside information about what occurred in the last 48 hours before the debate that dramatically changed the dynamics of this debate.
Watch the Audience Reaction and How Nothing Was Done to Stop the Heckler:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70adwv66r7s
I was really shocked to see that the audience was yelling and booing and clapping and that the CNN Moderators did not try to prevent it in any way. I think it was very unfair to the candidates to allow people to disrupt the Debate and to allow people to show approval and disapproval of the candidates. This format was specifically designed to not allow candidates to answer the questions fully and without interruption. The CNN Moderators did not stop protesters from interrupting Sen. Obama, and did not allow several of the candidates to fully answer the question after being interrupted by the protesters.
They started out the debate by giving Hillary Clinton a free pass to define her position(s) on why she isn't a calculating politician or a flip flopper. Clinton took the opportunity to go after Obama’s healthcare plan, and that is healthy to have that discussion. What was unfortunate was that when Obama responded, he was interrupted by pro-Hillary protesters who were yelling, causing him to not be able to respond fully, and Obama was then cut off by the moderator Wolf Blitzer. When John Edwards leveled charges about Clintons changing position on Trade, he was booed as well. The moderators never attempted to stop the crowd from booing and yelling at Obama or Edwards. It was outrageous to see this kind of behavior tolerated of audience members by the moderator and staff at the debate. When Wolf Blitzer asked Obama about his position on Clinton's changing positions, Blitzer said to Obama, "You've suggested she's 'triangulating', whatever that means, on some of the key issues".
Does Wolf Blitzer not know the meaning of triangulating? I don't have a Harvard Law Degree, but I certainly know that triangulating a position is a fancy word for taking both sides of an issue. Why would the moderator specifically ask a question with the intent of influencing the audiences’ perception about the relevance of the issue?Then, Wolf Blitzer tried to force Obama to give a one word answer to several questions, saying that Obama needed to give "a Yes or No answer." About the issue of driver’s licenses for Illegal Immigrants if no comprehensive immigration reform was created, about the use of nuclear power, until finally Obama took on Blitzer’s repeated assertion that issues couldn’t be addressed or could be answered with a one word answer. Then there was Sen. Clinton being given a softball question about how her Gender affects her in the race for President. No mention of how Richardson's Hispanic background affects him, or how Obama's racial background affects his race to be President. It was a free pass to clarify some of her statements about going up against "the all boys club".
In addition to the way the Debate was conducted, the moderators made several statements about the candidates’ positions which were not accurate. These questions often misrepresented the candidates’ positions, and could bias the viewers and audience in favor of or against a candidate based solely on the way the question was asked. The moderator said that Obama said Clinton could not unite the country and win, which was inaccurate. I don't feel that serves the process well when the questions start out with inaccuracies.Then a member of the audience asked a question about Supreme Court nominees, and the CNN Moderator then reframed the question entirely to ask about their position on Abortion. What is the point of having the audience ask a question when the moderator completely changes the meaning of the audience member’s question.
The Debate finished with a ridiculous question given the magnitude of the problems we face in America. Senator Clinton was asked if she liked "diamonds or pearls.' and Sen. Clinton took both sides of that issue. It is now reported that CNN didn’t want her to ask her original question, which was about Yucca Mountain, but to instead give a softball question about something totally irrelevant and utterly ridiculous given the Iraq War, 47 million uninsured Americans, rising tuition and breaches of our civil liberties.
This kind of format used by CNN is not only not fair to the Candidates, it is not fair to the voters who are watching the debate looking for answers without "editorial comment" by the audience through their booing, clapping or protesting.
As if it couldn’t have been made worse, the post debate analysis was appalling! CNN's post debate coverage included 4 people, 2 of which worked for Bill Clinton as advisors; James Carville and David Gergen. David Gergen and James Carville both said that Clinton performed brilliantly, while Obama and Edwards performed badly. And the discussion only included discussion about Clinton, Obama and Edwards and totally excluded Biden, Kucinich, Richardson and Dodd, who as far as I could tell where actually at the debate, though CNN would have you believe they weren't even there. Gloria Borger was also one of the four people in the post debate coverage, and she was overheard by another reporter in “the spin room” during the debate as saying of Dennis Kucinich "Oh, Do we have to listen to this guy?” During the post debate analysis, David Gergen completely mischaracterized Obama's response about the level of violence in Iraq. He said that Obama was not willing to say that troops had reduced violence in Iraq, and accused him of not being a guy who “can tell us the truth”. Obama said during the debate that the troops had done well in Iraq during the surge, but that the overall strategy is failed, and that violence is only back to 2006 levels. A True Statement! Imagine that! On November 16th, one day after the debate, CNN once again claimed that Clinton was the clear winner and Obama and Edwards were the losers of the debate. On Anderson Cooper 360, Soledad O'Brian said that Obama "always messes up at the debates". O'Brian also said that; "Barack Obama stumbled around a lot. We actually had to edit it [the debate clip] down because it was so long". CNN's Candy Crowley said Obama’s answers were "Pretty Bad". Soledad then confirmed what was obvious, that it was "a Pro-Hillary Crowd, probably even largely so." David Gergen finally talked about the “other” candidates when he said that Bill Richardson’s best hope would be to become Clinton's Secretary of State. So that's it then. CNN Declares that Clinton won; Obama and Edwards Suck; no mention of the other candidates at all, well except that Clinton will pick Bill Richardson as Secretary of State when she will be overwhelmingly elected as President. Did we miss something? Did we already nominate Hillary Clinton? Did Hillary Clinton already win the General Election? Were we asleep when this all happened? This is not unbiased reporting. There were no counter-points, no different opinions; everyone’s in agreement on CNN, so it must be true!
So that brings me to my main point. I used to live in Nevada and I have connections to some people in Nevada who told me some interesting information about the audience at the Debate. It is a little odd that Yesterday November 14th, CNN's Website said the following:
"It [the debate] will be at the Thomas and Mack Center on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. That's where CNN and the Nevada Democratic Party will host a presidential debate at 5 p.m. (8 p.m. ET)."
Anyone who has been to the Thomas and Mack Center was probably wondering why the audience seemed so small. That is because the debate was actually held at the Cox Pavilion, which is also on the Campus of UNLV. For those who don't know, the Thomas and Mack Center is an arena, it holds at least 20,000 people. The Cox Pavilion holds about 2,000 people. So in one day we went from being able to hold 20,000 people at Thomas and Mack, to the Cox Pavilion which is 90% smaller. Well you might say, they may not have had enough people, or perhaps they wouldn't have been able to keep the candidates secure; after all Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton are under secret service protection. Well...... I actually know a little something about this, because I was in Las Vegas in July of 2004. What was going on in July of 2004 you ask? I happened to be at the Thomas and Mack Center back in July of 2004 when Sen. John Kerry visited Las Vegas for a Campaign rally. There was no issue with security even though as the Democratic Nominee, John Kerry was under Secret Service Protection. We simply moved through metal detectors, and the whole Thomas and Mack Center was PACKED. It was not an issue of security, because there are very easy ways of dealing with that issue.
There were only 2000 available tickets. About a thousand of those tickets were given to the Nevada State Democratic Party; the other 1000 tickets were given to UNLV. The 1000 tickets given to the NSDP were given to people who were in high ranking positions. Some well established Nevada Democrats were able to go to the Debate at Cox Pavilion, while others who are not as involved in the Nevada State Democratic Party were excluded. So you have the State Party who pre-selected who they wanted to go, they may have called it a “lottery”, but I can tell you it wasn’t just a random selection. It’s a fact that many of the top members of the NSDP are Pro-Hillary Clinton. I think it was clear when you watched the debate that there was a Pro-Clinton audience. Clinton was applauded many times, but Obama and Edwards were booed several times. It was not because Edwards or Obama gave wrong answers; it was because the Pro-Hillary Clinton supporters pre-selected by the Nevada State Democratic Party were being rude and disrespectful, and perhaps even organized in such a way that that kind of behavior was actually encouraged.
So what happened to the UNLV tickets? Didn't they go to the students? The answer is not exactly. Only 100 or so tickets were given to students though some kind of lottery system. The other 900 or so tickets actually went to UNLV staff and professors and their family members.
So, please explain this to me like I am stupid. Why, one day before the debate, did CNN and the Nevada State Democratic Party change the location of the Debate from the Huge Thomas and Mack Center to the Cox Pavilion which is 10 times smaller, denying many voters the opportunity to attend? Why did they give the tickets to only the well connected in the Nevada State Democratic Party, and to the Staff of UNLV, with the remaining 100 being selected by a "lottery"? Is that really an accurate representation of Las Vegas or Nevada? Why were regular Nevada Democrats not allowed to come and watch this debate? Why did the moderators of the debate allow interruptions of the candidates with booing and yelling and then not allow them to answer fully after being so rudely interrupted? What am I missing?
I don't understand why this was done, but it was wrong, and I think this was a ploy by CNN, the Clinton Campaign and her deep connections with the top echelons of the Nevada State Democratic Party, to try to make Clinton look good while booing and interrupting Obama, Edwards, Kucinich and the others as well.
In laying out the differences between themselves the audience did not allow the candidates to articulate the differences because of their clear bias in favor of Clinton. They interrupted several other candidates by booing and by yelling, and it was enormously unfair. It was an huge disservice to the American people who did not get to hear from the candidates without “editorial comment” from the audience which was pre-selected by the top echelons of entrenched interests. It is clear to me that CNN and The State Party of Nevada did not create a fair playing field for all the candidates to answer the questions.
After I started a “Boycott CNN” group on facebook, Bonnie Jacobs, an associate of mine who serves as an Executive Board Member of the Nevada State Democratic Party has told me some additional information about the setup of the Debate.
She said that “I was not involved in the "lottery." I heard nothing about a requirement for a certain percentage of minority groups. I do know that Clark County Dems sent requests to each club saying they hoped to be able to give a few tickets to each club member.””Most of the seats there were NOT NSDP seats. We had a small percentage. There were also Unions, Press, Elected Officials, etc. that also got tickets.””As an Executive Board member, I was pretty much guaranteed a seat, but you know what? Those seats weren't all that great. Not that there were really any bad seats in the house, but compared to what was there, I was very far from the stage and very high up on the risers.”“As a member of the executive board I was provided with two tickets. As a member of the executive board I have a duty and obligation to remain neutral in this process.”
“Regarding the “lottery” for the remaining attendees picked by the NSDP, the only information required to be entered in the “lottery” was name, address, phone number and email address. They didn’t ask who you were supporting.”
”If the crowd came across as exclusively Pro-Clinton, then it WAS media spin, because I was THERE and the crowd was cheering for ALL the candidates. Unfortunately, since I was there, I didn't get a chance to view the debate on TV, so I don't know how it came across to the rest of the world.” “The heckler you refer to was sitting in my section and had been going on all night. I guess the rest of the nation didn’t have to hear her except for that one time.”
“I don’t know who your sources are regarding the site for the debate, but I had never heard that it was going to be at the T&M. It would have been unmanageable to have the debate there. For the past months, all I had ever heard was that the debate was going to be at Cox.””I appreciate your activism, Eli, and usually agree with you. I'm not saying that I don't agree with you in this instance. However, since I was on the other side of the camera, I saw a different side to the debate than you did.”
Now I am not criticizing Bonnie on her defense of the Nevada State Democratic Party on which she serves, and my biggest beef lies not the the NSDP, but with CNN. But I stand by my statement that the crowd was Pro-Clinton, the majority of the crowd appeared Anti-Obama and Anti-Edwards, and the conduct at the debate was unacceptable. Period. I don’t know how they selected the crowd, but there are a lot of different stories out there. Bonnie did confirm that there was a “lottery”, there were guaranteed seats for all the Elected Officials (state representatives, executive board members, committee members, caucus staff, etc.), the unions, etc. I don’t have a problem with including various communities in a debate, I think it’s healthy, but there was a “pre-selection” process, and those in charge had the responsibility to ensure that it was fair, and I believe that the process was not fair, and many people were left out, including several that I know personally.
I believe that CNN worked to make sure that the most vocal Pro-Clinton supporters were up front, because as Bonnie points out her experience was much different than the one seen on Television, and apparently she was sitting towards the back. The other debates were handled responsibly and without this kind of incident. This is something I would expect from FOX News, and it seemed to me this was specifically set up as “theatre”; that is, the booing and protesting was encouraged for ratings, and apparently it worked because it was one of the largest viewing audiences of any of the debates.
The bottom line about the CNN Nevada Debate is that something about this really stinks, and I want to get to the bottom of it. This election isn't going to be decided by the chattering class of media pundits with their agendas. This election will be decided by the American People, as it should be.
Comments are closed for this post.
