The debate formats are turning the presidential debates into more of an oratorical street fight than a well formed airing of positions to help Americans choose who we want to support. Do you honestly want to support a candidate who has an arsenal of quick one-liners or can spin issues on the spot over a candidate with a vision and the leadership to see the vision realized? I am not attributing these characteristics with either of the current presidential candidates, but I wonder what exactly the debates are really giving us.

Most people agree that the attention span of the average American is getting shorter and shorter every day and now resides in the 10-20 second range. The debate formats and the candidates' debate tactics are a response to that fact. The problem is the "most people agree" part. I believe that this figure is tantamount to urban legend. Who and how did they study to arrive at this figure. Obviously, when you are bored your attention drifts and when not it is more focused. I could listen to a presidential candidate discuss for hours about each and every plan and idea for every facet of their respective platform. However, when the hours get condensed and the candidates cram attacks and sound bites one after the other, my attention is gone. These days, I would rather see presidential candidate fisticuffs than a debate. I think the short attention span is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It exists exactly because those that create the programming believe the American attentions span is so short.

Why do we think an adversarial process will benefit us in deciding whom to support? It is in the details of an issue that the nuance can be found and the more possible outcomes exist. This type of adversarial process inherently stops its participants from delving into such detail, and forces a simple support/no support decision. The result is a polarization of support. Many Americans fully support one candidate and fully do not support the other. While this type of support naturally exists, there should also exist a "normal distribution" of support where people agree and disagree with many positions taken by both sides.

Rather than anything else, I would like to see one candidate at a time present their platform and take questions from those who want more detail on specific points. I, for one, would like more detail on many issues in this campaign.