I don't believe that using inflammatory rhetoric on either side of a debate is productive.
In my view, republican primary debates ought to be moderated by people who would vote in a primary.
I've always said this and finally I had a chance to demonstrate it: The moderator should be seen little and heard even less. It is up to the candidates to ask the follow-up questions and challenge one another.
Moderating a debate means spending more time with briefing books than with your children. It means writing and rewriting and rephrasing. It means finding a way to be alert enough to notice when your question goes unanswered and nimble enough to decide what you will do about that on the spot.
We knew that the referee [in primary debates] is on the side of the Democrats because the referee, whoever the referee is, is a Democrat first and a so-called journalist second. I mean, we know that Lester Holt did not challenge Hillary [Clinton].
I had done debate programmes before and quite often you go into them thinking: 'I might need to build some energy in the room.' 'On Question Time,' the reverse is true. A lot of the time, I am just trying to not have it turn into a slanging match.
See that's a goal that I think it's very good in the debate to find out who the person is.
I've done some moderating in the past at CBSSports.com. Certainly not in the debate format.
