Andrew Crighton

News Editor

The 2016 presidential election features two of least liked candidates in history, as well perhaps two of the most divisive. Several weeks ago marked the beginning of the debates between the two candidates, with one squaring the vice presidential candidates together. At the time of writing this article, only the first presidential and VP debates had taken place.

Although the September 26 debate was the most watched in history, one of the major criticisms is that it did not complete its goal of informing voters and swaying those who are still undecided.

“It’s disappointing because it’s turned into a very unregulated popularity contest,” Katherine Meikle, an ISU student, said.

Meikle believes that the debates do not contain facts, statistics or policy details. What really matters in them is, “How artfully they can twist their words.” This could put someone who does have the speaking skills, but does have the facts, in a poor position.

Burns Matthew Leavitt echoed a similar sentiment. “I do not think very highly of [the debates]. I’m not the biggest fan of our presidential candidates.”

There was a fair amount of name calling, interruptions and avoiding questions which Leavitt felt was a poor mark on both of the candidates for the United States Presidency.

“A president should be able to answer any question without name calling,” he said.

One of the large controversies after the debate was how candidates, specifically Trump, were quoting polls that showed that he overwhelmingly won the debate.

The controversy exists because the vast majority of those surveys quoted were not scientifically conducted surveys. Many did not have a randomly selected sample, but were simply taken by whomever wanted to online. These are not usually representative of a population.

Trump has more of these types of polls favoring him. Clinton, on the other hand, had the lead in eight of nine of the polls conducted by the traditional polling companies.

What does this inconsistency mean? For Leavitt, it doesn’t matter.

“I dislike both candidates I don’t even really care that much [about the polling].”

Most experts agree that neither candidate won many undecided voters during the debates because they continued to speak primarily to their base.

“There’s a large amount of sympathy and empathy coming from Hillary Clinton towards the general population and she does a good job of speaking to people’s emotions,” said Meikle. “Trump almost displays the exact opposite, where he won’t retract any of his statements and some people find comfort in that concrete stance.”

Some of the consequences of that concrete stance are the types of statements about immigration and allowing Muslims to enter the country that will not be reconsidered.

Meikle lived in Indonesia for much of her life. That experience gave her an in-depth perspective on the religion that also encompasses culture and custom. 87.2 percent of the population in Indonesia is Muslim.

“I find it repulsive some of the past comments Trump has made about Islam, which I think is just a far more complex subject than he seems to publicly discuss,” she said.

The issue of acceptance of different cultures and religions was also of concern for Leavitt. He spoke about how the unity of a nation and the acceptance of different cultures and communities are not mutually exclusive.

The lack of a viable third party was another sentiment between all interviewed.

Miranda Robertson said that because of what she had seen in the first debate, it would be hard for her to find the time to watch the others. What she would watch though, is a debate featuring solely third party candidates like Gary Johnson, Evan McMullin and Jill Stein.

Leavitt, Meikle and Robertson are all considering writing in a third party candidate on election day.

One of the hopes that Leavitt has for this election, is that either way it goes it will make people realize the flaws in the current system that led to these two being the presidential candidates.

As for the additional third party debates, or even having third party candidates included in the traditional debates, Meikle does not believe it will happen.

“The atmosphere of the debates has already been established.”