America Deserves A Better Debate

The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set newsroom policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com. Matthew Gagnon of Yarmouth is the chief executive officer of the Maine Policy Institute, a free market policy think tank based in Portland. A Hampden native, he previously served as a senior strategist for the Republican Governors Association in Washington, D.C. Tuesday night I, along with the rest of the country, watched in horror as the first presidential debate devolved into what can only be described as a childish food fight. The moderator, Chris Wallace, was unable to control the debate from the very moment it began, failing repeatedly to reign in both candidates from interjecting themselves into the answers of the other.