Presidential Debates Begin
The first presidential debate is set to take place tomorrow night at the University of Denver, but Long Islanders are anxious to get tickets to the second presidential debate taking place at Hofstra University in Hempstead.
The Commission for Presidential Debates announced in August that Jim Lehrer, Executive Editor of the PBS NewsHour will be moderating Wednesday’s debate. Martha Raddatz, the Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent for ABC News will moderate the Vice Presidential debate taking place in Danville, KY on Oct.11. Bob Schieffer, CBS’ Chief Washington Correspondent and moderator of Face the Nation will moderate the final “town hall” style debate in Boca Raton, FL.
Candy Crowley, CNN’s Chief Political Correspondent and anchor of CNN’s State of the Union will be moderating the second presidential debate taking place at Hofstra University on Oct. 16.
The debate’s this season will follow a new format which was designed to offer longer periods of time to talk about major domestic and international issues. Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr. and Michael D. McCurry, co-chairmen of the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), said “These journalists bring extensive experience to the job of moderating, and understand the importance of using the expanded time periods to maximum benefit.”
Tomorrow’s debate will focus on domestic policy, and the debate will be broken into six 15-minute segments each focusing on a topic chosen by the moderator. The vice presidential debate , covering both domestic and international issues, will be broken into 9 segments of 10 minutes each, beginning with an opening question to which the candidates have two minutes to respond. The second president debate will be in the form of a town hall meeting in which candidates will be given two minutes to respond to questions from undecided voters selected by the Gallup Organization. The third presidential debate will take the same form as the first, but with a focus on foreign policy.
The debates will all be an hour and half in duration, airing from 9:00-10:30 p.m. Eastern Time. In addition to the new format, CPD, which has been organizing the presidential debates since its formation in 1987, has announced an “innovating internet-based voter education program,” which encourages voters to familiarize themselves with the topics debated, and to share their views of the issues with debate moderators before the debate begins.
Unfortunately, if you were hoping to get tickets for the debate at Hofstra, you are out of luck. Tickets are distributed to the campaigns and the school, who then select ticket recipients.
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