Tell my morbidly obese, Bible thumping, small business owning, white Tea Party member aunt that, please! :)

You're going to be fun to read after election day.

The way American elections are run, it's a giant pathetic media circus anyway. Heck, no wonder it's popularity contests when it's imprinted into American kids at school level - most popular kid becomes class president so what a surprise when people vote for the guy who has the best smile and talk the most crap. The media then pile on the horse shit. Clean pots, dirty pots, flag pins, birth certificates, etc. etc.

It's utterly childish and pathetic and all it does, is show the rest of the world what a joke the US has become. Seriously, look at other Western countries and their elections - they tend to focus on the issues instead of on some insignificant thing that gets completely blown up. Heck, Belgium got a gay Italian as prime minister and not once was the fact that he was gay an issue during elections - I think we ALL know what would have happened had he been running in the US. (aside from the fact that they'd never had given him a chance to even be in the running)

I don't remember hearing talk like this four years ago. What changed?

I love how your media 'experts' like to tell something like this:

"The candidate X won the debate, because he was looking straight to the camera, and his opponent was looking at the host" :D

You don't? "The media just picked the president, rabble rabble" was a common complaint after the 2008 elections.

Edit: The media and Oprah, rather.

Really? You were living under a rock? It was even worse then! If it wasn't about Obama being black, it was about whether he was a Muslim, wasn't an American, didn't wear a flag pin, etc. etc. etc. Seriously, short term memory much?

True. But what I actually meant was that so called experts are focusin on irrelevant things. Infamous Kennedy Bush debate (???) with one of the candidates looking at his wristwatch too often and he lost the debate and the election because of that.

I mean, WTF? Media are trying to imply that the appearance is more important than the arguments, and people buy that story...

You're right there, too. They often ignore the substance and evaluate everything else to death. And then decide.

http://gawker.com/5951977/leaked-debate-agreement-shows-both-obama-and-romney-are-sniveling-cowards

I just lost all hope for tonight's "debate"....

I see what you did there... ;-)

The appearance in these debates is more important than you think. The people who these debates are for are undecided voters, in other words idiots. Things like looking at your watch will sway these people. People who look at the issues have already made up their minds by this point.

42 straight months of U3 unemployment above the 8% threshold that was not supposed to be broached in the first place, or a minor brouhaha from 15 minutes at a charitable organization.

I see folks have their priorities straight.

He's "washing dishes" in a tie... 'nuff said. This doesn't actually seem to be a feature of a democracy... at least not ours.
I'm pretty sure I can easily blame congress for this as much as the sitting President. In fact, I blame the previous two Presidents for it as well.