One of the biggest hits of the television season has been the presidential debates. They certainly have the elements of popular TV: colorful characters, soap opera drama, reality TV. The debates have the Darwinian struggle of Survivor, the popularity contest of American Idol, and the yell-at-each-other trainwrecks of daytime talk shows.
So the Republican debate #3 is tonight at 8:00 p.m. ET on CNBC. The theme is supposed to be economics, but all of the candidates will try to damage and pull away from Donald Trump, who will try to damage his newest rival, the gentle physician Ben Carson.
Let’s watch the debate, commenting as we go. I can’t say that I will liveblog it–I have other things to do and will be multi-tasking (including watching the World Series), but I do intend to tune in to the debate and will probably comment from time to time. But if a bunch of you do the same, we can do a communal live blog.
UPDATE: I’ll start a separate post for this!
From Presidential debates have become must-watch television – LA Times:
The surprise breakout hit of this television season isn’t some Kardashian spinoff or another cheesy competition among aspiring songsters.
It’s the prime-time presidential debates, which have attracted huge national audiences and shaped and reshaped the 2016 race long before the calendar turns, or any real votes have been cast.
Much of that can be credited to Republican Donald Trump, a singular personality when it comes to getting noticed, and to Bernie Sanders, the charismatically cantankerous Vermont senator, who is Hillary Rodham Clinton’s chief Democratic rival and the year’s other political phenomenon.
In a sense, the two are cast members, along with the rest of the presidential candidates, in a wonky form of reality TV. “We can’t wait to see who’s going to do what onstage, and how they respond to one another,” said Marty Kaplan, a former Democratic campaign strategist who teaches in the communications school at USC.
The next installment comes Wednesday, when Republicans hold their third face-to-face meeting at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The field will be divided once more, based on opinion polling, between 10 contestants sharing the main stage and four also-rans serving as their warmup act.
[Keep reading. . .]
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