In the grand scheme of things, how much time Andrew Yang speaks or doesn’t speak at a debate doesn’t fall very high on any list of global or domestic matters.
But nevertheless, I wanted to highlight Yang’s relative lack of time to address the audience when compared to other candidates, in particular candidates that Yang has been polling at similar levels or consistently above. And when a debate bypasses an opening statement, it should take less than 32 minutes for any candidate to receive their first opportunity to address the nation.
It’s easy to lose a debate (we can all remember Rick Perry’s epic “ooops” moment) but it’s really, really hard to ‘win’ a debate without having the floor consistently and without being called to follow-up or rebut another position. And time spoken absolutely relates to coverage following the debate, which can theoretically move public opinion, such as polling and whether voters believe a candidate is serious and fit to govern.
Now, do I think there’s a systematic plot to suppress Yang? Of course not.
But I do think that underlying biases and even habits by moderators make it more likely for them to call on say, Sens. Booker or Klobuchar because they have historically interviewed them to get their reactions on breaking news.
And as the 4th CNN debate by CNN showed, moderators can take steps to do additional research and set up interesting, substantive debates, such as when Yang and Warren contrasted their philosophies on wealth tax vs. VAT & Yang and Bernie contrasted UBI vs federal jobs guarantee.
I think these are important points of discussion that not only highlight Yang’s position but also allow the other candidates to passionately champion their philosophy and provide the voters an opportunity to differentiate, which enriches the debate experience and hopefully lifts up the Democratic Party as the party of ideas.
Data on debate speaking time:
This is a unofficial hand-count by a
Yang supporter on Reddit on how
often each candidate was called by
the moderating team:
So if you missed the debate or didn’t pay close attention, here’s a compilation of everything Yang said during yesterday’s debate (don’t worry, it won’t take long, ha!):
Also, thanks to siab for pointing out that I didn’t properly embed my images when I first posted earlier this morning!