Attacks over body parts and stature, vocal audiences and candidates yelling over each other have become recurring themes in several of the debates between Republican presidential candidates in the 2016 election cycle.
SPRINGFIELD ‒ Attacks over body parts and stature, vocal audiences and candidates yelling over each other have become recurring themes in several of the debates between Republican presidential candidates in the 2016 election cycle.
While party front-runner Donald Trump has been credited for much of the rancor that has surfaced in recent GOP debates, political observers suggest that it signals a deeper shift.
WGBY Director of Public Affairs Jim Madigan, who has moderated more than a dozen Massachusetts gubernatorial and U.S. Senate debates, said tension is almost always present among candidates, but the levels seen on the GOP debate stage are unique.
"The Republican debates this year, I've never seen anything like it," he said in an interview. "It's hard to imagine topics like the size of hands...this is third grade playground stuff."
Neil Levesque, the executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics and Political Library at Saint Anselm College, likened the 2016 GOP debates to watching the "Jerry Springer Show" or professional wrestling.
He pointed to how parties stack debate audiences with donors and major players instead of more local voters -- something that he argued has led to more audience involvement in recent presidential election cycles.
"If you compare them to debates we had 20 years ago, you can't even complete the comparison," Levesque said in an interview. "The language, rancor, audience yelling at candidates...these debates are more like watching World Wrestling Federation event than they are about a civic exercise about who should become the president of the United States."
Personal attacks and yelling among Republican presidential candidates came to a head last week, as the four remaining White House hopefuls met in Detroit. The prime time event drew criticism for personal attacks on U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio's, R-Fla., height, the size of Trump's hands and the businessman's denial that "something else must be small."
Following the debate, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said the tone and rhetoric needed to improve moving forward during a "Face the Nation" interview.
"I do think that you have to keep a 'PG' rating during debates," he said.
In wake of the chairman's call, candidates squared-off in a less contentious, issues-focused debate in Miami late-Thursday.
Madigan attributed the rancor that has surfaced in Republican debates, in part, to the media's obsession with celebrities, like Trump, as well as the frustration among voters supporting him.
"There's obviously a certain chunk of the Republican electorate, around 30 to 40 percent that's just plain angry and scared and feels kind of abandoned by government," he said. "Trump appeals because he says the un-(politically correct) stuff, he kind of says whatever comes to mind."
Madigan, however, contended that how moderators and networks conduct debates, as well as how many candidates appear on stage, have also likely played a role in the tone shift. He, for example, pointed to the lack of order in some of the debates' formats, as well as the speaking time discrepancy between top and low-polling candidates.
The types of questions asked, Madigan added, can also open debates up to attacks over discussions on issues.
"I think sometimes some of the networks may want a slugfest," he said. "It gets a lot of viewers."
Levesque agreed that media coverage has likely played a role in reinforcing less than civil behavior in politics, but dismissed the argument that it has sprung from frustration with government.
"To say it's because voters are dissatisfied is not an answer because Americans have almost always been dissatisfied with politics and we never saw it get this way," he said. "Why is that? Maybe we are less polite as a society."
For example, Levesque pointed to 1968 Republican presidential candidate George Romney, whose White House chances were essentially ruined after saying he had been "brainwashed" in Vietnam. He contrasted Romney's gaffe to comments made in the 2016 race.
"Now we have candidates talking about their body parts, you name it -- menstruation: this is new territory."
Today, Levesque argued, the tenor of American politics is that citizens believe the correct way to make an argument "is to yell and scream." Blame for the shift, however, cannot fall squarely on Trump, he said.
"Trump is being supported by people who like that," he said in an interview. "So therefore, is it Trump's fault or people who support that type of thing? To blame it on a candidate is wrong. A candidate could speak that way and if voters didn't like it, it would end his campaign."
While Levesque noted that debates between the Democratic presidential candidates have not been immune from personal attacks and audience input, he contended that they have been "clearly more polite and much more hospitable."
With both former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., having long careers in politics, Levesque argued that they likely realize whomever gets the party's nomination will need the other's support down the line -- something outsider candidates like Trump may not consider.
"If you haven't been in politics, and you maybe have been a CEO, companies destroy competition and don't look for their competitors to get across finish line," he said. "It's different in politics."
Madigan also said he believes the Democratic debates have been more issues-oriented -- something he attributed, in part, to the party's vastly smaller field of candidates.
Despite expressing disappointment in how presidential debates are changing, Levesque said he believes Saint Anselm will continue hosting them in years to come.
"This is American politics," he said.