PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES

PBS will host two of the four debates this presidential cycle, with Jim Lehrer hosting the first Presidential debate and Gwen Ifill hosting the only Vice Presidential debate, it was announced Tuesday. NBC's Tom Brokaw and CBS' Bob Schieffer will host the remaining two Presidential debates.

ABC News is noticeably left without a debate, perhaps a response to what many perceived as a "Gotcha!"-style debate hosted by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos (read HuffPost bloggers' reaction to that debate).

Schedule:

Presidential Debates
Jim Lehrer, Sept. 26, at Ole Miss.
Tom Brokaw, Oct. 7, in Nashville
Bob Schieffer, Oct. 15, at Hofstra.

Vice Presidential Debate
Gwen Ifill, Oct. 2, at Wash. U in St. Louis

Full press release below (via):


Paul G. Kirk, Jr. and Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr., co-chairmen of the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), today announced the moderators for the 2008 general election presidential and vice presidential debates. The moderators, and the schedule and locations for the debates (as announced on November 21, 2007), are as follows:

First presidential debate
Friday, September 26
The University of Mississippi, Oxford, Miss.
Jim Lehrer
Executive Editor and Anchor, The NewsHour, PBS

Vice presidential debate
Thursday, October 2
Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.
Gwen Ifill
Senior Correspondent, The NewsHour, and Moderator and Managing Editor, Washington Week, PBS

Second presidential debate (town meeting)
Tuesday, October 7
Belmont University, Nashville, Tenn.
Tom Brokaw
Special Correspondent, NBC News

Third presidential debate
Wednesday, October 15
Hofstra University, Hempstead, N.Y.
Bob Schieffer
CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent, and Host, Face the Nation

Each debate will begin at 9:00 p.m. EDT.

Format
The format for the debates, announced on November 21, 2007, will be:

-- Each debate will have a single moderator and last for 90 minutes.
-- In the first and third presidential debates and the vice presidential debate, the candidates will be seated with the moderator at a table.
-- One presidential debate will focus primarily on domestic policy and one presidential debate will focus primarily on foreign policy. The second presidential debate will be held as a town meeting in which citizens will pose questions to the candidates. The vice presidential debate will cover both foreign and domestic topics.
-- During the first and third presidential debates, and the vice presidential debate, the time will be divided into eight, ten-minute segments. The moderator will introduce each segment with an issue on which each candidate will comment, after which the moderator will facilitate further discussion of the issue, including direct exchange between the candidates for the balance of that segment.
-- The participants in the town meeting will pose their questions to the candidates after reviewing their questions with the moderator for the sole purpose of avoiding duplication. The participants will be chosen by the Gallup Organization and will be undecided voters from the Nashville, Tenn. standard metropolitan statistical area. During the town meeting, the moderator has discretion to use questions submitted by Internet.
-- Time at the end of the final presidential debate will be reserved for closing statements.

Participants The CPD 2008 Candidate Selection Criteria, announced on November 21, 2007, will be the exclusive means of determining the candidates to be invited to participate in the debates.

For more information, please visit http://www.debates.org.

i think it's very much in biden's favor that gwen is moderating the VP debate...

with two women involved, it won't look so much like a bully session

52 years old, no kids. I think it'll lean heavily in Biden's favor. Who knows, she might be another Oprah.

I'm looking forward to these. I'm pretty sure Biden and Palin will be whipping it out to see who has the bigger one.

The VP debate should be a good show.

certainly shuold provide some entertainment value
now I wonder if it'll be broadcast anywhere here..

from what I saw on the Gibson interview, Palin's gonna get plowed when it comes to military and foreign issues. She basically answered the way I would have answered, which isn't much of a stretch.

she's gonna have to have the bush box on her back(or maybe somewhere else for her ) with the ear piece

I really don't think the Dems wanna get in a pissing contest about which ticket is more equipped on foreign and military affairs. I think they need to put Barak on top of an Abrams tank ala Dukakis just for laffs.

and mccain is more experienced because he was in a war? does anyone think of the mental impact being a POW has on him and his judgement?

I can't imagine, if conservatives actually thought that wartime experience was a key component of national leadership, George Bush would have ever been a candidate. I think it's more a rhetoric thing...the notion that liberalism, which is greatly marked by things like humanism, intellect, and introspection, by definition creates a mindset that is incapable of making wartime decisions.

This is because it leads to a mindset that concludes that war is not the best solution to problems. That scares meatheads.

is there anywhere online (including torrents) to see this? (accessible to us bloody foreigners)

youtube?

haven't looked tehre...never think about it the quality is so shit!
I'll have a look tomorrow

You're not downloading Spiderman 3. It's a talk show interview. As long as you can hear the words, who cares what teh quality is?

Well thats about the lowest argument on the list.

Im just not willing to subscribe to the French surrender first mentality Obama wants to bring.

it's not an argument. it's a point made that i haven't heard yet. what have you got that hasn't been said already?

Actually I have raised that point somewhere in one of those threads
the fact he was a POW during several years is not necessarily a good thing re his mental health.