All-Candidate No-Shows

[Liberalman]

All-Candidate No-Shows

All candidates community debates have become popular and gives the voters a chance to see a candedate in action before they make their way to the polling stations to pick the person that closeley resembles what they want.

More and more Conservative candidates are opting out of these events citing useless bickering as the main reason.

All-candidate no-shows: An UPDATED growing list - Inside Politics

Are all cadidates debates important for the voter to make an informed decision or are they just useless bickering fests?

What do you think?

 

[Machjo]

I'd gone to my local debate, talked to the candidates, and was not impressed. All they can do is bicker, the best of them has the imagination of a turnip, and again this election it looks like I'm heading to the ballot box with a blank ballot. Blank ballots are a last option for me, but it's that I'm about to do it a second time in my life, and a second time in a row unless one candidate shows a flicker of a brainwave in that head of his.

You want to make debates more effective? Here would be my proposal:

1. Have multiple debates, each focused on one topic. For example, let's say one of the debates is on economic policy, another on the environment, etc.

2. Give the questions days ahead of the debate, so as to give them a chance to think out a thorough response, and then at the end of the debate open the floor to questions from the public.

This way you get to see how the candidate can actually handle depth of discussion, prepare thorough answers to pre-asked questions, and think on their feet at questions from the audience. That would be much preferable to just one general debate covering way too many topics in a short time.

 

[Mowich]

All-Candidate No-Shows

All candidates community debates have become popular and gives the voters a chance to see a candedate in action before they make their way to the polling stations to pick the person that closeley resembles what they want.

More and more Conservative candidates are opting out of these events citing useless bickering as the main reason.

All-candidate no-shows: An UPDATED growing list - Inside Politics

Are all cadidates debates important for the voter to make an informed decision or are they just useless bickering fests?

What do you think?

I will be attending our all candidates debate on Monday. Personally, I think these types of debates give voters a chance to meet their candidates and listen to them without all the bias that is part of our national media. From past experience, it is the audience members who provide a lot of the bickering that goes on - not so much the candidates.

 

[taxslave]

I think they work better for municipal elections than federal or provincial. Mostly because there are no parties involved. Having been to many federal and provincial ones all I see is candidates parroting the party line. they also get kind of tedious when there are 4 or 5 fringe candidates that get to speak but no one is much interested in what they have to say.

 

[Taxx]

I have been to one of these in my riding and I agree that they bicker. For the most part, it's just the non-conservative candidates saying **** about Stephen Harper and how we can't trust him. They would do much better if they stuck to the facts and gave up this bickering bull****.