Not many questions regarding issues were answered during the presidential “Town Hall Debate,” because the candidates were trying to place blame.

However, the public didn’t care enough to notice, according to an analysis by members of the EC Forensics Team.

“The Town Hall Debate is more like a question and answer session,” first-year forensics team member David Croom said.

The purpose of “Town Hall,” however, is not to be a debating tournament.It is designed to be a more casual atmosphere where people can ask the candidates questions, Croom said.

“But the whole idea of the debate is extremely flawed, because the questions were submitted beforehand,” he said.

The pre-selected and prepared question could be part of the problem.

“Bush just seemed too rehearsed,” first-year team member Lucas Flick said.

Bush was often too prepared and ready to jump up and attack his opponent, which often times led to unstructured arguments, Croom said.

“They skirt around to issues that they feel they have achieved more on,” Croom said.

Since neither candidate would ever admit his mistakes, what the candidates tried to do was place blame on each other, first-year team member Luke Freiburthouse said.

Both of the candidates try to appeal to the public by relating themselves to general Americans, Croom said.

“Kerry will stand up there and say ‘I fought in the war, I’ve done this and that’ just like you all have done,” Croom said.

“Bush will stand up there and ‘Say I’m a rancher from Texas, I’m just like you,'” he said.

However, often times, the public just wants to hear what sounds good, regardless of its relevance, Jel Samar, second-year student coach, said.

“People just don’t care how the issues will be solved,” Samar said.

“They just want to know that someone is going to take care of it,” he said.