Political Debates, Swank Style

Last night I had the opportunity to watch my state's gubernatorial debate off the sweetie's TiVo. About 10 seconds into the opening remarks of the first candidate he was already boring me with what he had to say, so I hit the fast forward button. Then I started fast-forwarding if they weren't answering the question. Then I was fast-forwarding when they were mentioning their big grand plan for the 10th time. By the end of the debate I was basically only listening to the questions, because the discourse went something like this:

Moderator: Candidate, do you plan on raising teacher salaries while you are in office? If so, how? If not, why not?

Candidate 1: Teachers are great. But I want to talk about my opponents health-plan that the mentioned 3 questions ago. ....fast forward....

Candidate 2: Teachers are awesome and deserve lots of respect. In fact, in my fifty point manifesto point number 17 says that education is important. ... fast forward...

I've come up with a new plan for the political debates:

Each of the candidates will be in a clear, soundproof, box and I, as moderator, will have control over their microphones. If the question isn't answered, or the candidate goes off topic, or just starts to drivel on without really saying anything, then I get to turn their microphone off and they have sacrificed their turn.

I will encourage the cameras to show their faces, because the expression on their face when they get cut-off would be priceless.

I would also be free to interrupt and tell them that they were boring me, and should really be more interesting if they want me to pay attention to anything.