NPR Host: Next joining us is Stephen Hess with the Brookings Institution. Please submit your questions now. We're talking about the debates tonight The vice presidents are debating tonight in Kentucky. Our last guest predicted there would be fewer fireworks. but vice presidents traditionally play the attack dog role. What do you think about the debates? Do you plan on watching? Please send in your comments and questions now. Stephen Hess with the Brookings Institution will be joining us in just a couple of minutes. He'll talk about the vice presidential debate tonight. What are your thoughts? Welcome Stephen Hess to the chat

Stephen Hess: My wife and I are NPR junkies so this is a new experience. The first debate was exceptionally useful we saw two candidates who fundamentally disagreed on very important issues. so if you want to view it as a learning experience rather than an entertaining experience, we are way ahead. it's clear that the candidates figured we would be listening for only ten minutes so every ten minutes they said the same thing over again, so it was not stimulating television, but it certainly should have given the attentive listener enough reasons to cast his or her ballot for...

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