Matt Ortega

Univisión’s Democratic presidential debate was a historic event in American politics. The debate itself, however, was not much different than debates aired on CNN or MSNBC — just in Spanish.

Associated Press reporter Nedra Pickler turned the lens from the candidates to the Univisión moderators, anchors Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas halfway into the article.

Anchors Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas posed questions in Spanish and the candidates had earpieces to hear simultaneous translations into English. The candidates’ responses were simultaneously translated into Spanish for broadcast, and English-speaking viewers could watch using the closed caption service on their televisions.

Not surprisingly for anchors who vocally support a path to legalization for the nation’s estimated 12 million immigrants, both Ramos and Salinas framed their questions with the basic assumption that immigrants, including those in the country illegally, face discrimination and have been unfairly demonized — a view not universally shared in the English-language media.

It turns out that Univisión has much to learn about hosting presidential debates. Not only did the network fail to do any real outreach to the blogosphere, Univisión was ill prepared for the amount of press that showed up to cover the event.

Univision’s late entry to the field of networks hosting such high-profile political events was evident Sunday night. Reporters from around the world who came to Florida to cover the debate were left with no audio feed in the room where they were placed outside the debate hall for the first 35 minutes of the 90-minute event.

Moderators Ramos and Salinas strictly adhered to the previously agreed to terms of the debate: no candidate was allowed to answer in Spanish, despite the fact that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd are both fluent.

Richardson, one of two candidate who speak fluent Spanish, objected to the debate rules that required all candidates to answer in English. The rule was designed to make sure that no candidate had an advantage in appealing to the Spanish-speaking audience.

“I’m disappointed today that 43 million Latinos in this country, for them not to hear one of their own speak Spanish, is unfortunate,” said Richardson, the governor of New Mexico. “In other words, Univision is promoting English-only in this debate.

I think it is a shame that the network instituted the language provision but it was likely at the behest of a rival campaign.

Marisa Trevino thought the debates to be “refreshing” and noticed that, with the audience narrowed, candidates were taken off largely generic answers to more refined points. But these refined points were not far off the beaten path from the usual dodges and half-answers.

I will say this, though: moderators Ramos and Salinas appeared to provide much more balance in terms of equal time to candidates than in previous debates. This, however, cannot be corroborated because the Dodd Clock did not make an appearance for this debate.