Master debaters (cue rimshot)

The most disappointing thing about Wednesday night’s debate is that there wasn’t any bloodshed.

You’d think there would have been, given the hype. For weeks, the news media was apoplectic in declaring that the showdown would come in second to the Apocalypse in terms of earth-shattering, universe-destroying events. Obama and Romney were supposed to stare hard into each other’s eyes until there was a violent rip in the fabric of spacetime.

Then the fated hour came, and they just kinda talked about stuff.

On the one hand, we shouldn’t be surprised; we go through this every four years. Like the Olympics, we work our way to a level of frenzied anticipation for something that, without fail, makes fence-painting feel as edgy and extreme as skydiving. Debates are where the unpredictable, gaff-laden moments on the campaign trail die a pathetic, and highly controlled, death.

But there’s always the hope that something might happen to justify the bated breath and white knuckles – like a candidate being interrupted by an alien invasion, or suffering a stress-related nervous breakdown that makes them shed their clothes and dance the Macarena.

That’s about what it would take for the debates to live up to their billing – that, or an abandonment of the traditional formula in favor of a bare-knuckle brawl in the octagon.

“Handlers” have become a big part of this stale predictability. You’ve heard about the handlers. It’s a word that has become a part of the political lexicon, like “patriot,” or “poopyface.” The handlers are the ones who make sure their candidates stick to the talking points, stay on message, stand up straight, don’t snap their gum, etc. They take the wild fruit of the candidates’ positions, extract the essential ingredients, refine them into something digestible, and sell them to the American public in shiny, plastic packages.

And they’ve become so pervasive in American politics that it’s hard to tell whether it’s the candidates talking or their coterie of advisers. These days, it’s all about playing it safe. In a sense, they can’t really be blamed for that. It’s the YouTube era, after all, in which every little comment, every misstatement and mistake, is recorded and dissected to the point where the words themselves lose all meaning. As Mr. Romney can attest, the wrong comment in front of the wrong technology is a hangman’s noose.

All of this results in debates that are as scripted as a high school play. The reason we still hope for fireworks is because of debates past, before the handlers started spritzing their candidates with sanitizer. Maybe the most famous example of such fireworks came in the 1988 vice presidential debate between Lloyd Bentsen and Dan Quayle. Quayle, who compared his level of experience in the U.S. Senate to that of John F. Kennedy when Kennedy took office, was sideswiped by one of the most legendary political smackdowns of all time: “Senator,” said Bentsen, “I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

Boom! Eat it, Quayle!

As far as staying in the public consciousness, that moment ranks alongside Mike Tyson biting off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear. We’ve been waiting for another one like it for 24 years.

If the political system remains in its current state, of course, that simply won’t happen. The handlers will pose their mannequins, and it’ll be up to us to analyze the fingerprints. Pundits will take to the airwaves to painstakingly pick apart a sea of generic pandering and dubious claims; a panel of “experts” will try to tell us all about body language and eye contact. And we, the general public, will grow weary and flip the channel over to professional wrestling for some intellectual stimulation.

Which segues nicely into a truly American solution: Since so few of us listen to the content of the debates as it is, replace the format entirely with an American Gladiators-style slugfest. The winner will be the one who looks “more presidential” while beating his opponent senseless with a foam javelin.

It would be sensationalist and contribute nothing to the public discourse. But at least there’d be some bloodshed.