Interesting.
I view it as a useful way to find out what the currently stated political stance of a candidate is. Once you know that, then if it's an issue you care about, you can take some time and look into the candidate's background and see if his record matches his current political stance. It's also worthwhile to use to keep track of a candidate's positions and see how they change over time based on the next state to have a primary election or from the primary season to the general election season; every politician has some issues he is firm on and some issues on which he is willing to bend on in order to get votes or political support, and it's useful to know which are which.
I view it as a useful way to find out what the currently stated political stance of a candidate is.
It not useful for me. An hour and a half of frantic signaling at the stupider half of the electorate, a popularity contest driven by the necessity to pretend to be the BFF of everyone? I can get a much better idea of a candidate's political stance after spending 10 minutes with Google, compared to cringing and feeling my brain cells atrophy for 90 minutes X-/
See this Newsroom clip.
Basically, their news network is trying to change the way political debates work by having the moderator force the candidates to answer the questions that are asked of them, not interrupt each other, justify arguments that are based on obvious falsehoods etc.
How big of a positive impact do you guys think that this would have on society?
My initial thoughts are that it would be huge. It would lead to better politicians, which would be a high level of action. The positive effects would trickle down into many aspects of our society.
The question then becomes, "can we make this happen?". I don't see a way right now, but the idea has enough upside to me that I keep it in the back of my mind in case I come up with a plausible way of implementing the change.
Thoughts?