Turn on the TV

You’ve got a debate to watch

I can get excited to watch a show like “The Office,” which in my opinion involves great humor. I can get excited to see a movie like “Toy Story” because it’s one of those movies that tug at your heart strings.

But honestly, I have no clue how people can get excited to watch anything political.

Last Wednesday, I made it a point to watch the presidential debate on television, and let me tell you, I was anything but excited.

The last two weeks, I’ve asked you to take a challenge and educate yourself about the political candidates. I asked you to take just five minutes out of each day to read a fact about what is going on with the election and to dust off your knowledge on the local lawmakers who directly influence you.

Because you only had to turn on your television (assuming most of you have one), I would hope that Wednesday night you were doing just what I was doing—sitting down to hear two guys debate for the same position.

As this was the first presidential debate I’ve watched, to my surprise, it was not at all what I expected.

The first and main thing that really stuck out to me had nothing to do with opinions about political issues. Actually, it was the disrespect both of the candidates showed the mediator, Jim Lehrer (host of “NewsHour” on PBS) as well as each other. Time after time, they interrupted the other and paid Lehrer hardly any attention.

Now, I know it’s important to get a point across, especially in the battle for presidency; however, respect is something that the future president of the United States should take pride in showing.

The day after the debate, I read through a couple articles posted on Mlive.com (I highly recommend reading some of them). After reading the main content in each of them, I scanned readers’ comments.

According to many comments posted by fellow viewers, Romney came out on top in the debate. “He was more aggressive, and acted more like a president, while Obama looked tired and uninterested.”

As I can understand these comments, I can’t say I agree with them. In my opinion, I don’t think there was a winner in the debate. I personally thought they both could have done a better job with getting their points across in more effective ways.

Although I wasn’t a fan of this debate, luckily I have three more debates that will help shape my opinion.

On Thursday, Oct. 11, the vice presidential candidates will speak in a debate. On Tuesday, Oct. 16 and Monday, Oct. 22, the last two debates between the presidential candidates will take place. The debates will begin at 9 p.m. sharp on your local news station.

Think about it. If you didn’t get a chance to watch the last debate because you were too busy doing something insignificant, I would say you owe it to yourself to at least watch one of the upcoming ones, don’t you?