11-10-15 ripon college political science professor says republican debate format has been unfair to some candidates

A Ripon College political science professor says the debate format used during the Republican presidential debates has been unfair to many of the candidates and more entertainment that informative.  Because there are so many candidates, some have been bumped from the main stage because of ratings and even if they are on stage get very little air time.  Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee’s ratings weren’t good enough for Tuesday night’s debate in Milwaukee even though both have shown momentum in some of the early primary states.  “To some extent its arbitrary.  There were too many up there, they weren’t getting enough time per person and somebody had to go,”  Farrell told WFDL news.  Farrell says instead of allowing a candidate like Donald Trump to dominate the debate, a better idea would be to ask a question and give each candidate 90 seconds to answer.  “That would be fair.  Then the questions need to be more general.  They can’t be why did you declare bankruptcy on your casino?  Then we could judge who has the best answer.” Farrell says it also seems that the network hosting the debate has been more cncerned about ratings and the entertainment factor of the event instead of having the candidates discuss substantive issues that really matter.  “There’s no doubt about that,”  Farrell said.  “Unfortunately the networks need ratings, they don’t want it to be like C-Span.”