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A4 U.S. NEWS
Saturday 29 June 2019

Analysis: Tell us everything (but keep it to 60 seconds)

By TED ANTHONY it on a sprawling slate of
AP National Writer candidates, and you’d be
NEW YORK (AP) — “Each partially right. It’s fair to say
man shall make an open- that anytime you put 10 en-
ing statement of approxi- ergetic people who want
mately eight minutes’ du- to lead the “free world” on
ration,” CBS-TV moderator a single stage and tell them
Howard K. Smith intoned as to have at it, elbows will fly.
John F. Kennedy and Rich- But it’s more than that.
ard M. Nixon began the first This was but the latest it-
televised presidential de- eration of political rhetoric
bate on Sept. 26, 1960. as interstate highway bill-
On a Thursday evening 59 board: Make sure all the
years later, NBC moderator letters and images are big
Chuck Todd had this to say enough, bold enough, col-
to Democratic presidential orful enough to make an
hopefuls in the closing mo- impression for those driving
ments of a 10-candidate by at 70 mph while check-
rhetorical scrum: “Please — ing their texts and reaching
for one or two words only, for their Starbucks.
please.” Today, so much of the
For this particular event, the American media diet is de-
maximum time allotted for Democratic presidential candidates, author Marianne Williamson, former Colorado Gov. John livered live and consumed
any sort of thoughtful ex- Hickenlooper, entrepreneur Andrew Yang, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President in slivers of immediacy rath-
pression was a nice round Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., er than larger, assembled
Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., listen to a question during a
minute. Democratic primary debate hosted by NBC News at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing narratives. Things arrive in a
So: climate change. The Arts, Thursday, June 27, 2019, in Miami. million little pieces, so each
economy. Taxes. Racism. Associated Press of those pieces must have
Health care. How you’d politicians scrabbling for air press some of history’s most what?” she said. “America a chance at being noticed,
stand up to China. Why time. TV hosts interrupting complex and persnickety does not want to witness at being remembered.
you’re concerned about them — sometimes plain- problems into, not even a food fight. They want to But complex ideas require
socialism. Go! tively, sometimes dictatori- sound bites, but sound nib- know how we’re going to larger portraits, or at least
“If I could just finish,” said ally — and trying to make bles. put food on their table.” collages. And when we ask
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet of sure everyone had his or Americans wonder: Why In this forum, a “thank you” the human who wants ac-
Colorado. her say, or at least that they has political discourse be- from a host usually meant, cess to the nuclear button
“Vice President Biden, 30 got in a few pithy sentence come so sharp, so mono- “Enough already.” To get to reduce complex ideas
seconds,” said moderator fragments for the ages. chromatic? Perhaps be- a word in edgewise in the into two or three words, or
Rachel Maddow. Maybe it was the otherwise cause we have Power- tight format, men talked even a rushed 60 seconds
“A REAL 30 seconds?” Joe frenetic nature of the de- Pointed our way from clar- over women. Men talked with nine others trying to
Biden shot back. bate that made its few mo- ity to simplicity to only really over men. Women talked talk over you, that has im-
If this week’s twin and Twit- ments of clarity so electric. paying attention when the over men. (Women talking plications — not only on the
tery debates demonstrat- They included U.S. Sen. Ka- sharply defined and the over women, not so much.) candidates themselves, but
ed one thing about Amer- mala Harris debating race simplistic rule the day. Biden and Sanders were on a public grappling to
ica, it was this: The ever- with Biden in starkly person- The jockeying for a few spotted raising their hands understand the nuanced
increasing pace of society al terms; and South Bend, words shouted over some- tentatively as Buttigieg issues of the day.
and the fragmentation of Indiana, Mayor Pete But- one else’s few words grew talked. And while it took Brevity might be the soul
its methods of communi- tigieg accepting respon- so intense at one point Karl Marx years to develop of wit, not to mention rat-
cation have sent electoral sibility for failing to build a Thursday night that Harris, his theories about social- ings. But pinning the future
politics drifting into the more diverse police force standing at a lectern near ism, former Colorado Gov. of history’s most complex
choppy waters of utter ab- in his city. the center of the political John Hickenlooper got a republic on ideas ex-
surdity. Lost in the mayhem was chorus line, was moved to single minute to explain his pressed in bursts of sec-
It made for great television, this: America as a society is turn it into a political apho- concerns about it. onds and minutes is a prac-
sure. It had all the elements: actually asking the people rism. What produced this state tice that is, well, eminently
America’s most ambitious who would lead it to com- “Hey guys, you know of affairs? You could blame debatable.q