Debates aren't really the platform to sway people's opinion, I think. The thing with debates is that they allow candidates to express their political stance on policies and philosophies.
It's highly unlikely that someone who share's Hillary Clinton's ideology, fairly far-Left, liberal, would agree with Ron Paul's just right of center, Libertarian viewpoint.
The truth is, people really want to have their cake and eat it too. People want to have all the government benefit of a socialist state, but don't want to pay any taxes, and now we have the worst of both worlds; we pay a huge percentage of what we make to taxes, and most people have few tangible benefits from the government.