Depending on your political views, it may be hard to call a winner in Tuesday night’s Presidential debate. It may be easy. However, Emporia State University political science professor Michael Smith says there was a clear loser — the political process.
Smith tells KVOE News the process, and especially the mail ballot component, is under baseless attack in this election cycle.
Smith says Tuesday night’s debate between President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden qualified as a “fracas, disaster and a low point in modern American democracy,” referencing the repeated interruptions and increasingly heated crosstalk as the debate continued. Smith says Trump was largely to blame, although Biden contributed. Smith also says Biden, despite stumbling to finish answers, likely put to bed any criticism of cognitive decline.
From Smith’s viewpoint, Trump wasn’t able to get Biden off message.
Smith says the upcoming Vice Presidential debate Oct. 7 will likely see a lot less in the way of fireworks, and he expects Biden running mate Kamala Harris to be the aggressor against sitting Vice President Mike Pence.
Presidential debates are also scheduled Oct. 15 and Oct. 22, and it remains to be seen if those will actually take place as scheduled or whether there will be format changes in light of the debate Tuesday night. We will carry all the debates on KVOE and KVOE.com.
