Questioning the questions: an examination of the "unpredictable 2004 Bush-Kerry Town hall debate.

• Author: Morello, John T.

When the first town hall debate took place in the general election campaign of 1992, the presidential debate landscape changed permanently. From 1976 through 1988, every televised debate occurring during a general election campaign followed the model of the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debates: a panel of journalists punctuated the proceedings by asking questions of the candidates. After 1992, press panel debates disappeared from the lineup, replaced by a single moderator approach. The town hall debate, however, gained momentum and has been one of the formats used in each debate series during the past four general election campaigns. As Schroeder observed, "the viewer appeal of this format seems to have guaranteed its future" (145).

Since the beginning of town hall debates, the potential volatility of the format has both concerned debate producers (Schroeder 147) and attracted viewers. The former are concerned about the unpredictability of the behaviors of untrained voters, who suddenly find themselves thrust into the presidential debate limelight and may behave in unanticipated ways. Because the town hall format maximizes spontaneity (Farah 88), it potentially is more interesting than formats in which, critics have charged, the proceedings seem entirely too scripted. The potential for unanticipated, "unscripted" moments defines a unique attribute of the town hall for mat, a possibility that undoubtedly strikes fear into the hearts of candidates and their strategists while it tempts viewers.

This essay considers the unpredictability of town hall debates in a new way. Analysis of the 2004 town hall debate. (1) between George W. Bush and John F. Kerry reveals that, as the town hall format has matured, some of what we thought we knew about it may no longer be true. As one observer noted, "The encounter at Washington University here also shattered some conventional wisdom about town hall debates" (Harris A21). Much of this conventional wisdom is an outgrowth of expectations shaped by the very first national town hall debate in 1992, and close examination of the 2004 debate reveals that the 1992 template is no longer operational.

The unpredictability of the 2004 town hall will be examined by comparing the questions asked by voters with those asked in previous town hall debates and those asked by journalists in press panel debates. While the press panel and town hall formats differ in many ways, they share one inescapable feature. In both, the various "rounds" of debate are initiated by questions. One candidate takes first crack at answering a question, and then rivals are invited to reply, in remarks sometimes even referred to as "rebuttals." Whether the basic design of the debate is Meet the Press or meet the people, its communication dynamics are shaped by the question/answer nature of the encounter.

Close study of the questions featured in the different formats reveals how the 2004 town hall debate upset emergent expectations regarding discourse and interaction in this format.

The next section outlines three expectations that have emerged regarding town hall debates. The subsequent section will analyze the 2004 Bush-Kerry debate, demonstrating how these expectations went unrealized. The final section argues that the dynamics present in the 2004 debate may shape the way that future town hall debates are staged.

TOWN HALL DEBATE EXPECTATIONS

The town hall format arrived with high expectations and was met with early endorsements. "A Times Mirror Center poll conducted at the end of October 1992 revealed that 460/0 of the public preferred that candidates be questioned by voters, compared to 28% who endorsed the single moderator format with no other questioners and 14% who favored a panel of reporters" (Owen 151). CBS News anchor Dan Rather commented that the Richmond, Virginia, town hall debate in 1992 "worked best because the questions were by far the best" (quoted in Berke, "Which Debate" A19). The New York Times favorably contrasted the town hall debate to the press panel approach: "There was much to like about Thursday night's Presidential debate, and more to learn than from the first one, when an unwieldy cast of three candidates, three panelists and one moderator produced a hash of choppy sound bites" ("The Candidates, Unvarnished" A24). Lemert and Bernstein discovered that respondents in both single-interview time-series and panel studies preferred this format to others used in 1992 (16).

Such remarks strongly suggest that town hall debates produce a different kind of experience than other formats would, and this difference is, at least in part, responsible for its favorable reception. The contrast between the questions asked by citizen participants and press panelists is well documented and represents one piece of conventional wisdom about town hall debates.

When compared to press panelists, tradition has it that citizens in town hall debates will ask questions that are less argumentative, less accusatory, and less likely to generate clash. Bitzer and Reuter (41) described the adversarial tone and content of the questions posed in the 1976 press panel debates between Carter and Ford. Hogan (221) went so far as to characterize many of the journalists' questions in the 1988 Bush-Dukakis debates as belligerent. Eveland, McLeod, and Nathanson's study of the 1992 debates cited several scholars who had noted the accusatory tone of questions asked by journalists in previous years' debates (392). Another study, by Silva and Herbeck, which examined debates from 1960 through 1996, concluded that there was "no doubt that journalists have come to play an adversarial role in presidential debates" (236).

Town hall debates, by contrast, have featured questions that are less pointed and provocative, less likely to cause the candidates to focus on attack and defense strategies. Citizen questioners ask more self-oriented questions, which allow the candidates to talk about what they think and believe, than questions designed to stimulate clash. In the 2000 town hall debate, "530/0 [of the questions] requested self-analysis, and another 20o/0 requested nonclash analysis. Only 12% requested comparisons" (Carlin, Morris, and Smith 2211). Benoit and Wells (5859) found that the town hall debate in 1992 had the least clash of the three debates that year, due to the audience's demand that personal attacks be avoided. Another analysis (Morello 6) drew a similar conclusion. In fact, the desire to avoid antagonism in that debate was so pronounced that Bill Clinton went so far as to preface one of his answers by saying, "This is not mud-slinging, this is fact-slinging" ("Campaign 1992" A34). This audience mood dampened criticism, leading at least a few observers to comment "that the questions were softballs and that there was little actual debate" (Berke, "Which Debate" A19). One comparison of the questions asked by journalists and citizens in the 1992 debates concluded that "undecided voters seemed less likely to ask argumentative, accusatory and leading questions" (Eveland, McLeod, and Nathanson 404).

In addition to expecting that the tone of town hall debates will be less argumentative, commentators have extolled the virtue of "real people asking real questions." ABC's Carole Simpson, moderator for the historic break with presidential debate tradition, commented that the Richmond debate "was without a doubt the public's favorite," perhaps because "real people were asking questions, asking the kinds of questions that the people at home wanted answers to" (8). As Carlin, Morris, and Smith have commented, "Since its inception at the presidential level in the 1992 debates, the public has responded positively to the format because citizens ask questions that citizens want answered, and citizens perceive that candidates are less evasive" (2211). Viewers identify with the questioners, persons who look and sound like themselves (Schroeder 145). This perception, along with the assumption that candidates may not evade citizen questions as easily, further explains the popularity of the town hall format.

A final piece of conventional wisdom about town hall debates is that the composition of the live audience of questioners contributes to a sort of authenticity that will foster a reasonable debate. Campaigns gamble on uncommitted voters in hopes of avoiding systematic imbalance in the questions. As Schroeder observed:

As in other matters of debate production, it is the campaigns that have decided to fill the town hall audiences with uncommitteds. Uncommitteds are preferred over partisans in order to guarantee that the random selection of questioners will not inadvertently skew toward either candidate. In this, however, the candidates make a trade-off: Questions from undecided voters are less easily predicted and therefore less easy to prepare for. (146)

That the composition of questioners might skew the proceedings is a long-recognized weakness of the press panel format. Press panelists have been accused of asking, questions growing out of their own special interests (Hellweg, Pfau, and Brydon 23). They have been chastised as consumed with demonstrating their own erudition (Fischer 63) rather than providing meaningful opportunities for discussion and debate. When reporters asked the questions, they sometimes "were overbearing and prone to jargon" ("Sure Loser" A30). Relatedly, press panelists have been criticized for asking questions that tend "to highlight personality issues in the campaign" (Kay 8) and for being "preoccupied with questions about politics and campaigning, not the presidency and governance" (Birdsell and Jamieson 169). Accounts of press panel debates also have voiced concern about questions that focus on "matters of personal belief" ("The Charismatic Norwegian" A32) or that "have little bearing on how well the country is governed" ("Scoring the First Debate" 16). Finally, questions might be asked in order to make headlines...