Presidential debates on “This Week”

The first presidential debate is scheduled for Monday, September 28.

University of Missouri political communication professor Dr. Mitchell McKinney discusses some of the basic points of these candidate exchanges.

I start our conversation on “This Week” by asking Dr. McKinney how important it is for a candidate to “win” the first debate.

Watch our full conversation by clicking on the video above, or read some of that conversation in the transcript below.

Dr. Mitchell McKinney: We usually look at a series of debates where the first debate is the most important in terms of it will have the largest amount of viewers. Many folks will tune in for that first debate, and think that they got it all, there’s no need to tune in for the subsequent debates. So it generally the case the first is right off the bat very important. We have seen instances of where candidates have floundered a bit in their first debates. Four years ago barrack Obama in his first debate with Mitt Romney was not on his usual game, and even many of his supporters thought that he did not do very well, and that then made the second debate more important for him. So this one, Monday night, is going to very important for both candidates.

Joey Parker: The topics include America’s direction, achieving prosperity and securing America. Do you think that voters will get anything out of those topics, or do you think they will even stick to it?

Dr. Mitchell McKinney: Well, certainly they sticking to it is depended upon whether the candidates will address the question raised by, I believe it is Lester Holt who is the moderator for the first debate Monday night. Those are general enough topics that there are a lot of questions that could come under any of those. But certainly it seems like that though as you look as those, there could be a mix of foreign policy, national security questions, domestic issues, issues related to budget. So I think there is a wide variety of things that could happen.

Joey Parker: how much of responsibility is it to do the fact checking if you are the moderator for the debate.

Dr. Mitchell McKinney: You know this notion of really fact-checking the candidates has really come into play four years ago. We saw moderators, candy Crowley comes to mind, in midstream , in the debate, and at that point it was mitt Romney making a statement that she felt was not factual .

Joey Parker: She got a lot of blow-back for that,

Dr. Mitchell McKinney: She did and some moderators, Chris Wallace I think in this round suggests that it is not his job to fact-check. Other moderators have journalists who participate in the debate have suggested that maybe there needs to be some level of calling the candidates into account on the claims that they make, that may not be factual or may be contradictable to things they have said earlier in the campaign. If there is not fact-checking by the journalists, that puts more responsibility on the candidates. If ones opponent that is just simply has no basis for fact or reality, then that candidate, it is there job to call their opponent on it. This is what we saw four years ago in that first debate. Where many people felt that Barack Obama did not do any fact-checking of his opponent, and he then came back in the second debate and was ready to do that. So it really is, the job of the journalist especially over past several election cycles has certainly come into question. Are they partisan? Are they in the tank for one or the other of the candidates? We heard already some working of the refs if you will. Particularly I think Donald trump has suggested that some of the moderators that he does not find completely fair or they perhaps won’t give him a fair shake. We heard some of that in the primary season in the primary debates. In some ways that is a strategy going into the debate to set up the expectation that if one doesn’t perhaps perform very well there is a scapegoat or it was the journalists fault because we previewed that going into the debate.

Joey Parker: How can the average smart voter, figure this out on their own. They don’t have a staff of journalists or researchers that can fact check everything that’s there. Is there a way for just the average person to figure this out, maybe a site they can depend on and trust that is non-partisan.

Dr. Mitchell McKinney: You know I generally say, Joey, that the viewers, the voters at home, they get it . They understand what is going on. One on the level did this candidate respond to the question or did they evade. Did they simply ignore and go on to something else. In terms of the answers, because there are so many outlets of information from news from political from traditional news from social media through entertainment venues. When candidates misspeak, clearly in attempt to deceive in their debate responses we are going to hear about it. And we are going to understand that something was said that was not quite factual. I think that at the end of the day , the viewers, the votes get it and understand what is going on.

Joey Parker: After the debates on Monday night, maybe we will hear a little more from you.

Dr. Mitchell McKinney: Well I am looking forward to it.

Joey Parker: Alright we look forward to having you to talking to you again, Dr Mitchell McKinney, thank you very much for joining us.

Dr. Mitchell McKinney: Thanks.