Michael Jackson TalkRadio Content

ack in 1980 the Reagan-Carter debates attracted an audience of over 80 million people. Times have changed. Just four years ago the audience had dwindled to some 47 million to hear Al Gore and George W Bush. The first of the three scheduled debates this time will be a ninety minute affair aired on September 30th. The second will be of like duration and will be a town-hall forum with voters selected by the Gallup Organization asking the questions. The third and final joint appearance will be on October 13th. Each will have its themes or topics. The first, foreign policy and homeland security. The second will be up to the selected voters and the third on a variety of domestic issues; healthcare, the economy and jobs, and the environment.
They aren't debates in the true sense of the word. They are highly orchestrated, pre-rehearsed face to face affairs, that will tell us hardly anything about the depth of knowledge each candidate possesses. The events are extremely staged and the answers very rehearsed. But, this is the one final chance for us...if we watch in vast numbers...to make perhaps a final decision on who best speaks for the united States; who would be most likely to make this a better place in the upcoming four years and beyond.
No, these are not debates in the Lincoln-Douglas mold, but they will be a welcome relief from the stump speeches and the atrocious commercials of this campaign - and there are so many more of them to come.
I'll be watching every moment. Will you? I'd very much like to hear from you.

I'd love to be on the panel at the first debate. Question one to President Bush..Sir, why do you, your vice president and all those around you, pretend that all is progressing well in Iraq when there is clear evidence that's not the case?

Question for Sen. Kerry. Democrats should surely be focused on economic inequities, so why is there so much talk of a war that's thirty years past?

To the incumbent: Howard Dean said that the war in Iraq is "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time". a) Isn't he correct? b) what have you achieved and c) when you speak of "staying the course", what does that mean?

Sen. Kerry, who would have believed that this year's presidential campaign might turn out to be more of a referendum on John Kerry than on George W.Bush?

The Bush campaign is betting that this election will come down to one issue; which candidate will be tougher in the war on terror. To both candidates, is that an accurate assessment and who is better qualified...who has the better ideas and the fortitude to get results.

For either candidate: the recent past has seen an awful milestone reached and passed; more than 1000 Americans soldiers have been killed and some 8 thousand injured in the 18 months since the invasion of Iraq began. Most of them being injured and killed since the President's boastful claim of "Mission Accomplished". (A great photo-op last May). Who knows how many Iraqis have been killed and injured. Iraq is a disaster of our creation and no one in office appears to know what to do about it....is it time to possibly consider a withdrawal and are our forces part of the problem or the solution?

I am not now included in the panel of journalists, nor will I ever be...that's left to far wiser men of the media. I'll be watching and listening in the hope that such questions are posed, and answered.