Kalan: Prez debates are boring for a reason

The presidential debate is a hallowed tradition of American politics, a public display of intellectual prowess marred only by the fact that usually nobody watches it. This year, however, Americans are engaging in the political process like never before. Pundits predict that for the first time ever more people will be watching the debates than pornography. Such mass attention leaves only one obstacle keeping us from realizing the ambitions of its democracy: The debates are likely to be so boring that most who watch them will check out of politics for good.

All debating aspires to emulate the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, a marvel of rhetorical brilliance and Pay-Per-View’s highest rated event until Wrestlemania III. Unfortunately, the Lincoln-Douglas debates were for the senate; nothing memorable has ever happened during a presidential debate. It speaks volumes that the deepest impression made by 1960’s Kennedy-Nixon debates was that Kennedy shaved regularly.

It’s science fact: The less interesting something is, the more important it ends up being. Such is the case with debates, which test candidates’ essential “talking a lot” abilities. Unfortunately, while that was acceptable in the slow-paced past, an audience bred on video games won’t put up with a contest where the only surprise is whether the contestants are sitting or standing. Common sense says the debates should be spiced up with trick questions, physical challenges and tigers.  

 But by making the debates worth watching, are we ruining them? The fact is, boredom is the price we pay for democracy, just as when our Founding Fathers endured a supremely boring winter at Valley Forge, without board games or magazines. Perhaps Americans have lost faith in the government not because it consistently fails at everything it does, but because it’s tried too hard to make politics exciting. It’s time we embraced the god-awful monotony of these debates, and realized that not only won’t we enjoy a single moment of them, but that the country is better off for it.

Elliott Kalan is a producer for “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”