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The mics won’t be hot.
The moderators will try to keep cool.
And any cold sweat from candidates will be because of the stakes, not the static format of the face-off on Tuesday night. After all, the first version in June proved to be a seminal election event, ending President Joe Biden’s bid for a second term and elevating Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democrat who will face former President Donald Trump, the GOP standard-bearer for the third straight time.
The event, of course, is the presidential debate. But like much of politics, that title is more rhetorical than reality — at least compared to the construct of how most debates are conducted.
“It’s a debate — in a way,” said David Cram Helwich, a senior lecturer in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Communication Studies. “But it’s one that is focused on persuading people to engage in a particular act — which is turn out and vote for the candidate — as opposed to being aimed at expanding public understanding of particular issues, doing a thorough assessment of the evidence on both sides of the question, testing the research and the reasons that are offered.”
Viewers — and more meaningfully, voters — “get a candidate’s initial opinion about a particular subject, and then get a little bit of response to what it is their opponent said, but really don’t see a lot of depth around those issues,” continued Cram Helwich.