As I’ve alluded to before, leader’s debate tend to be more about show than value. Your ability to speak and respond trumps all, as that’s what the format requires. Many treat it like a game, a political game, and tally points.
It can often be useless. Just like the first NDP leadership debate in 2011 (English half).
Correction, it wasn’t much of a debate. It was more of a show. A presentation.
The event mostly consisted of agreement and NDP promotion. You expect the leaders to share many values, considering they’re all part of the same party. You expect much to take place. You can even expect a couple to be nearly ideologically identical. The other thing you should expect when going into a debate is distinction between the candidates and fleshed out disagreement between the candidates.
This barely happened, and even if there was some kind of disagreement it was quite minute. Much of it was self-aggrandizing from the candidates, who, of course, were all aggrandizing their own party, the NDP. We learned from that debate that they were all interested in being leaders, all had some sort of plan, and you should support them. Oh, and I agree with Other Potential Leader completely. Absolutely.
The things that make these candidates different weren’t emphasized, and that was part of the problem. Many of the questions were broad and vague, so a similar answer was to be expected. There wasn’t question or time to really single out any distinctions, or defend any differences. There was a lot of leadership assertions.
Therefore, it provided very little in terms of which candidate is best. It provided very little in even telling us what makes the candidates different. Overall, it seemed more like an advertising for the NDP rather than something useful.
Edit:
Just look this post by Progressive Proselytizing. This is your typical political analysis. Measure the speaking skill and tone of candidates, while taking into account media’s attention to them.
All three of the top tier candidates of Thomas Mulcair, Brian Topp and Peggy Nash came off very well. They spoke well, they spoke passionately, and I think managed to accomplish what they needed to do: establish their legitimacy as top tier candidates in the debate setting.
Firstly, this requires you to buy into that these candidates are top-tier. This is usually figured out through media attention and elitist measuring sticks. No substance at all.
Second, spoke well. They spoke well. They spoke well because, as I said, it’s a performance. It’s a show. Their speaking skills are vital to the context of this performance.
I understand speaking is important to leadership, so I am not against factoring that in, talking about it and what not. I have a problem with the speaking being the sole emphasis and main discussion. And it often is.
The blogger does go on to talk about policy and leadership in that sense, but no real contrast or x candidate had the best proposal.
There’s one thing, briefly mentioned, which I think I’ll end with.
Overall there was far more homogeneity between positions than there was difference.
