Why I lost the "debate" last night

This comment from Matt Yglesias sort of explains why, as a political junkie, I don’t find these debates either interesting, or informative.

“As ever, it's really striking to observe the difference between the audience-generated questions and the journalist-generated questions. Wolf Blitzer's main interest is in asking questions designed to put Democrats on the wrong side of public opinion, even if those questions are about things like driver's licenses or "merit pay" for teachers that aren't really under federal purview. Efforts to reframe those questions by putting those topics in the larger context of immigration policy more generally or education more generally are derided as cowardly dodges. The point, after all, is to force a choice -- piss off an interest group, or say something that could be used in a GOP attack ad.”

It’s all about making the moderator look good, not to find out where the candidates stand on the issues. If that happens, and it sometimes does, it is just coincidence, not a function of the debate format that we’ve become accustomed to. The same thing is true of Tim Russert’s “gotcha” shtick – it’s gotten old and boring, and it doesn’t make anyone look good – especially Tim.