In the most recent debate, the moderators asked the audience to hold their applause. Just to be quiet and let the candidates debate. Of course, it was in response to the South Carolina debate in which the audience cheered wildly for Gingrich’s answer to John King’s question.
These Two are Still in the Race
Predictably, Romney was happy with the new rule, and Gingrich was not. Stuart Stevens, Romney’s top adviser, said “It is not the LSU-Alabama game.”
R.C. Hammond, a spokesman for Gingrich, said “The prohibition for no clapping was kind of un-American. What if you went to a baseball game and they were like, ‘No cheering after a big play.'”
It struck me as humorous that they both used sports metaphors.
I can see both sides. Audience participation favors Gingrich because Gingrich is basically a rabble rouser. When the rabble is force to remain unaroused, he doesn’t do as well. Of course, the vast majority of the people watching the debates are watching them at home on television, but how are the people watching at home supposed to know when to cheer if they don’t see people in the audience cheering? Imagine watching TV sit-coms without the laugh track. Not only wouldn’t you know when to laugh, but very few of them would seem funny at all.
And that’s why the network did it. If that had been the rule from the beginning, fair enough. To institute it at this point is the same as saying “We want Romney to win. Newt is messing up our story line. We’d better get things back on track.”
It reminds me of the New York Times withholding the story on warrantless wiretapping until after the 2004 election, on the grounds that “it might have negatively impacted the election.” In other words, Kerry might have won, which wasn’t what the New York Times wanted.
The silent format, favoring Romney, is no better. It’s more dignified (i.e. more boring), but no more revealing.
And, in either case, the moderators are trying hard to pretend that Ron Paul and Rick Santorum aren’t there.
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