Debate Tips:

Each time the country goes through the quadrennial exercise of presidential debates, they become more ritualized and opaque. Mining useful data from the process becomes increasingly a matter of art, the way journalists used to have to divine who was in and who was out in the old Soviet Union by studying banquet seating charts or who stood next to whom on military review stands. With 32 pages of bipartisan agreement on rules designed to eliminate any chance of an uncomfortable surprise, this year's series of debates should be especially hard to decode. But still, they remain "must-see TV," despite their many flaws. Unless you happen to run a corner cafe in a battleground state, this will be the only chance most people will have to see the candidates for more than a few seconds at a time. I have found it useful, on past occassions, to tape the debate, then replay it with the mute button on. Listen to the body language. If you catch the debate on NCPR, try ninety minutes of silence afterward. You may not glean any useful knowledge from the air, but you can at least get your blood pressure back to normal.