Final Presidential Debate Means Higher Stakes for Hillary Clinton, Not Harder

Donvan, who moderates the Oxford-style Open to Debate formerly known as Intelligence Squared U.S. debate series and is part of a Change.org petition promoting the reform of the American presidential debate system, attributes part of the problem to the format of the event itself. Simply put, it doesn’t lend itself to actual debate.

“What we really see is simultaneous interviews,” he said.

The entire election cycle has been disappointing from the point-of-view of actually presenting a debate, he said. “A debate is an argument, which is very different from bickering,” he said.