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The Spectacle Blog
Byron York argues that the pending schedule of at least a dozen GOP primary debates between November 9 and January 31 is overkill:
The sheer number of debates raises the question of diminishing returns. The early debates helped introduce the candidates to the Republican primary electorate. Later debates will help voters in critical states make their final decisions. But the next few debates, while they might be the occasion for a major gaffe or gotcha, have little purpose.
What would the candidates do if they weren’t debating so much? They’d campaign more. That’s obviously what Perry wants to do. Compare his weak performance on the debate stage with his mastery of hands-on, one-on-one campaigning, and its easy to understand why.
But fewer debates would probably benefit the other candidates, too. Voters in the early states really do pay close personal attention to candidates, and word gets around if a candidate does well on the stump. Of course, for that to happen, the candidate has to actually be on the stump.
Hmm. Fewer debates would certainly benefit some of the candidates, but can it really benefit all of them? The candidates are, after all, in a zero-sum contest to win votes. While Rick Perry’s time may be better spent on the trail than on a debate stage, the opposite is probably true for at least some of the candidates, and it is surely true that other candidates benefit from having Perry use his time inefficiently. And if Perry or anyone else skips a debate, that costs him something; it’s doubtful that Jon Huntsman gained anything by skipping the debate in Nevada last week. Maybe the benefits of being on the trail outweigh the costs of skipping a debate in some cases, but given that a debate is unlikely to be canceled unless a critical mass of candidates take a pass, and some candidates have a disincentive to do so, it’s hard to see how the debate schedule can be significantly lightened.
View all comments (15) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by John Tabin
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/10/27/too-many-debates
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rendite| 10.28.11 @ 12:12AM
You fullt-time do "nothing else but binge on politics and then opine endlessly" types could, yes, see these 'debates' as excessive.
Why do you assume that the REAL Americans at home have even had the chance to see 2 of them so far?
The Dartmouth debate was not broadcast on any of the 60 TV stations we get here.
Wanting very much to view the Las Vegas, Nevada event, I made it a point to have nothing else on my after work agenda that night. Problem is, my boss and our current big project hit a snafu and all on the team worked late into the night.
So there was no watching Las Vegas.
I trust you get the point. Real Americans are busy people. Even when you try to be a bit engaged in politics, it is not easy. Three debates back it was the same night as a major city and county open forum for a multi-million dollar (taxpayer expense over the years) throughway expansion. Yes, this local open public forum takes precedence.
You might have 12 on the full schedule; the average interested voter will only catch 3 or 4 (these are good citizens) -- full debates, from start to finish.
There is no real harm in many of these GOP debates. We should welcome too many versus too few.
Just eliminate all the fancy lights, rock n' roll bumper music, glizzy stage designs, useless pizazz, heavy makeup, and promos for the network hosting. These are to be sober, real discussions, not pseudo American idol stage settings.
This is supposed to be serious discussion. (Okay, to be fair, they haven't used the dry ice yet.)
packeryman| 10.28.11 @ 12:22AM
Its time for Perry to go. He has preformed poorly in all debates. The guy looks like a deer in head lights on stage with a class act like Romney. Now he comes with a ridiculous tax plan and" birther" talk. The tax plan allows those who want to drop out of the new flat tax plan and stay in the existing one. Sheer insanity. Perry has way too many negative issues that have yet to be vetted. He has about 20 negative issues going in Texas that he will have to explain, example: highest in nation in uninsured drivers, those without healthcare insurance, high school drop outs, teenage pregnancies, 48th in hourly wage rate, on the bottom with Mississippi percentage wise drawing minimum wage, 34th in education and Perry cut 4 billion from the education budget, we now have some of the highest home owners insurance rates in the country. He became wealthy in office and his ties to big oil, big pharma(the vaccine debacle), and the insurance industry is yet to be vetted. Bachmann alluded to it in one of the debates. This list goes on an on. Romney is the only one that can carry the Independents. the others are religious fanatics or tea bagging freaks or supported by the same.
Jack in Wi| 10.28.11 @ 7:30AM
The ratings are pretty, good. It is somewhat better then the shows American Hoggers and Storage Wars. It kind of reminds me of the old Big Time Wrestling show. I can see why Perry wants out. He is awful on his feet and has imploded his candidicy. He still has a lot of money. He may as well go waste it trying something else. The only adult on the Stage is Ron Paul. All the rest are more of the same. It is Ron Paul for President and Rand Paul for Vice President or ruin. Have a great weekend. Shalom.
Mimi| 10.28.11 @ 7:33AM
packeryman....Believe me I am not a fan of either Perry or Romney. They would take their place in debates...one at each END of the Row! Their "fight -nite" was the last straw ! The only good they could do is take over for the " THE ONE"!
We need a wise , mature, experienced LEADER, not being in it for themself but to SERVE the nation in our hour of GREAT NEED !!
martin j smith| 10.28.11 @ 8:05AM
No --more debated but not under the MSM oversight. There is where the problem is right there. The more the better. Quality and quantity.
But there are things that happen outside of and between debates that also count. Everything counts. So --lets look closely as to who is responsible for not the number of debates but how these debates are arranged and what in the name of tadpole got them to think of such a stupid format and arragementt such as with Communist Nuze Nyetwork ( That would be CNN)
Could it be that it suits the Establishment Repyubiks agenda to slant the debate away from Romney for example ? The voters are watching and they know BS when they see it and they see it.
JimH| 10.28.11 @ 8:15AM
These are not debates. They are more like group press conferences. THere needs to be a format where they interact with each other more.
Sean| 10.28.11 @ 8:18AM
Perry is complaining about the interaction part.
Stefan Stackhouse| 10.28.11 @ 9:34AM
I think they ought to do it like "Survivor" where one candidate gets voted off at the end of each round. That would certainly make these debates a lot more interesting, and also guarantee that as time moves on, we get more time to hear more substantive answers from the most viable contenders.
Of course, we couldn't have the candidates themselves doing the voting, or we would end up with all the best candidates getting voted off first. Instead, you would need some sort of jury to make that decision.
Heck, we could do it this way to cut the field all the way down to two, and then just hold a national primary on a single day. This would save a huge amount of time, trouble and money.
Bumr50| 10.28.11 @ 10:04AM
Let's just ignore New Hampshire this year. This way we can finally get rid of it's "importance," and candidates can stop having to campaign excessively there.
It's ridiculous.
(apologies to NH residents, but the current system makes you WAY, WAY, WAY too important at the national level)
martin j smith| 10.28.11 @ 10:22AM
Lets have the debates moderated by Conservative Talk Radio hosts--and even include one Repyubik and one Communist for flavor but maybe five good conservative Talk Radio host who ask questions posed by voters. That is how it should be done.
conservative bob| 10.28.11 @ 10:38AM
There probably are too many of these trained seal acts. Frankly they are more theater than debate and given the way they are organized and presented they are not serving our purposes well.
What we are trying to do is vet our candidate to represent the GOP in the general election. Why then do we allow entities that are hostile to our efforts to manage them CNN, MSNBC and the rest.
The agenda of the presenters are to at best gain viewers but more accurately they seek to destroy and belittle. All of the questions are from their point of view and guided by their liberal/progressive agenda and assumptions.
It has always amazed me how individual intent on being the leader of the free world subject themselves to these trained seal act clown shows. Look at the last charade in Vegas…. The host’s intent was to get a fight started.
This choice is too important to allow the likes of A. Cooper et al to select the questions and frame the debate.
I would suggest that the GOP and conservatives put together a pool of moderators from the conservative press and or groups like Heritage and from this pool choose moderators. Too many of the farces are about the moderator and not at all meant to allow the candidates to expound on the issues and describe their vision.
If there are fireworks they will be on the substance that concerns GOP voters. We need to lose all the cheeky gimmicks of you tube man on the street questions. Like that clown planted to bring up the gays in the military. Or some of the other totally inane questions
We need to get the liberal progressive gotcha out of our selection process and manage our own process in our own best interest. When we have made our selection and we move into the general we will have plenty of time to answer the earthshaking question of boxers or briefs. Until then we select from among ourselves that person we think will best represent our views for leading this nation.
Benjamin W. Hartley| 10.28.11 @ 11:10AM
Debates? Naaawww... reconstituted press conferences or mislabeled beauty contests is what they are. All. Of. Them.
Lessee: how many scheduled? IIRC, it's something like sixteen or so. That's sixteen or so too many.
crazy| 10.28.11 @ 11:48AM
Eight people competing for attention 6o and 30 second increments is not a debate, it's Thanksgiving dinner. We're learning just about as much about what each would do as president as we would around the holiday family dinner table. We have strayed way too far from the campaign process that concentrated on building support in urban and rural areas, in large and small groups, and building support for a consensus nominee in the nominating convention. It's too bad we haven't realized what we've given up by concentrating on a nation-wide nominating process. The eventual republican nominee will have a plurality of support but will have been opposed by a majority of voters - not a recipe for success.
JSmith| 10.29.11 @ 2:03AM
"Refugees are individuals or groups of people in grave danger because their home government is either unwilling or unable to protect them."