Thought the VP debate moderator was bad? Crowley intends to go farther

CNN’s Candy Crowley

The two campaigns have been far apart on just about every issue, until this week’s moderator, CNN’s Candy Crowley, decided to ignore the terms agreed to by the candidates campaigns and announce she would take a more central role in the town hall-style debate.

Town hall debates are supposed to be led by audience members, but Ms. Crowley has announced that she will be pushing the candidates as she sees fit. In a series of interviews on CNN, Crowley has stated that after the basis of the question has been set, she intends to say things like, “Hey, wait a second, what about x,y,z?”

The candidates organizations agreed to the terms set in a memorandum of understanding between themselves and the Commission on Presidential Debates. That memorandum states that the moderator would play a limited roll. Unfortunately, the memorandum was never agreed to by Crowley.

The audience members are picked by Gallup from a field of likely voters. The intent is to give ordinary voting Americans the chance to ask questions that they feel are important. Having a moderator change the tone or direction of the questions minimizes the importance of the voter and raises the influence of the moderator.

According to the terms of the agreement, the moderator is not to “rephrase the question or open a new topic.” In even more explicit terms, the agreement firmly limits the moderator’s role to traffic cop:

The moderator will not ask follow-up questions or comment on either the questions asked by the audience or the answers of the candidates during the debate or otherwise intervene in the debate except to acknowledge the questioners from the audience or enforce the time limits, and invite candidate comments during the 2 minute response period.

Crowley’s interview statements show that she intends to change the debate into something she would prefer – ignoring the agreement between the campaigns and the commission.

Both campaigns have now sent letters to the commission complaining about Crowley’s intentions to change the terms of the debate.

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Rich Mitchell

Rich Mitchell is the editor-in-chief of Conservative Daily News and the president of Bald Eagle Media, LLC. His posts may contain opinions that are his own and are not necessarily shared by Bald Eagle Media, CDN, staff or .. much of anyone else. Find him on twitter, facebook and

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2 Comments

  1. This is disgusting. But, what else is new? These egotistical moderators don’t care about the questions or the answers we the people wish to hear. They only wish to push their agenda’s. Especially if those agenda’s usurp this nation’s ONLY Supreme Rule of Law!

  2. “Debate” certainly takes on a different meaning these days, yet nearly as different as ‘moderator’
    From indications I heard today, Ms Crowley is carrying the mantel for ‘women’s femminist groups. She apparently thinks that womem have been ignored for these events & this round the 2 women are being relegated to the ‘less important’ dabates because men don’t think ‘they'(women) are smart enough. And it’s pandering & part of the war on women. This is NOT MY opinion…

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