The Debate Debate

'Tis the high season of political debates.  As a disclaimer, this post will not be a medium to convince you of who should be president.  It's more a commentary about the antiquated debate system and how little help it really lends voters.  The official tradition dates back to 1960, but there are also other instances referenced before that time.  Overall, however, what's learned through these debates is what follows:

1. No matter who is placed as the moderator, participants ignore them.  So much discussion surrounds debate format, rules, etc.  However, this all falls apart once the debate starts.  Lesson learned?  These debates are simply a microcosm of the state of our political system.  Politicians do what they want, when they want, and no rules or morals or laws will stop them. 
2. Candidates spend more time talking about what the other is not doing or not planning to do than they spend time on their actual plans and an explanation of effects of those plans.  When they're not discussing what the other has not done, they discuss their version of what the other will be doing.  Lesson learned?  We could view the endless negative political commercials at our fingertips, learning the same set of information and have 90 minutes more of our life back.  Everyone wins!
3. The debate system is inherently flawed.  Perhaps there was a time, once upon a time in history, when you could take any candidate for his or her word.  Today, however, truth is an illusion.  We have learned this through the plethora of political scandals that have unfolded before our eyes.  So, the fact that some insist that these debates are key to political races is absurd.  I don't want to hear infinite iterations of what these folks plan to do, I want to actually see what they will do or can do.  Give me a list of what you see, as a candidate, as the top 5 issues in our country.  Then, tell me what you're going to do about it...and then?  Tell me what you have done previously that would support that you can actually make this happen.  Using debates to determine a candidate's qualifications, to me, would be like putting together a pro sports team by simply having players tell you what they can do.  Sports, like politics, are about doing.  If you can't do, then you are not qualified.  It seems in today's world, though, that more and more decisions are made by what people say they can do.  I wonder how this has worked out? 
4. Lastly, as long as our political world is dominated by partisan ideals, with no interest in unity, then debates will remain an extension of that philosophy.  We will learn nothing, they will repeat the same stuff we see and hear otherwise, and we will continue to get nowhere.  It's great to know what the Democratic and Republican candidate want to do and how much they detest one another's solutions and ideals.  But, how is that a barometer for how they'll do their job...with those hundreds of others who must help them get the job done?  I would rather see a format where they must sit down with those across the aisle and actually demonstrate how they would walk through solutions together.  Isn't that what they really must do to get the job done?  Where is our common ground?  How can we expand on that...and...in the end...actually benefit our constituents? 

I have always been underwhelmed by politics, and it's for these reasons.  For me, it's more an act of theater than what it should be, which is pretty serious stuff with pretty high stakes.