Will they run the entire election this way? Week after week of one on one debates?
No the unlike these GOP clowns the President has a job and shit to do.
No.
There will be 2-4 Presidential debates around the country. They will be carefully codified by both teams to provide maximum predictability for the candidates. Little will be gained. It is absolutely true that one cannot win elections through debates but one can, indeed, lose them through debates.
So there’s little incentive for both sides to have endless debates.
Toss in that these debates are happening so often because they appear to be ratings winners for the news networks and you have a recipe for ‘good now, bad later’.
During every general Presidential election campaign they go on for weeks about how many debates there are going to be. And then, every single time, there are three debates.
That’s not to say it can’t be different this time, but I really doubt it.
The number of debates will be determined by the polls. If one candidate has a clear lead, he will decline as many debates as he can. The closer the polls are, the more likely there will be more debates.
There is no advantage for a clear front runner to risk a debate slip up. He has nothing to gain and everything to lose.
In the primaries, like we’re seeing with the Republicans right now, all the single digit guys want as many debates as possible. That pretty much forces the front runner to participate. The debates would happen with or without him.
Another no vote. Presidential debates are so predictable, boring and lacking in substance that I don’t bother watching them. Regardless of the questions from moderators or the candidates, the programmed responses are the same, and rarely even answer the questions. Ratings death.
Frankly, comparing these GOP reptiles to clowns is offensive to clowns. Clowns have jobs and shit to do as well.
My correspondent from the reptilian contingent has asked me to express his dismay at the above. He would have posted about it himself, but he had schedule conflicts that left him too little time.
I expect they’ll just have the traditional three debates. Like John Mace said, the front runner always wants fewer debates, the guy in second place wants more, and in recent years they’ve always settled on three. The Republicans are having a lot of debates because there are so many of them that they all get squeezed for airtime and it’s harder to make an impression, and because they’re courting different groups. Nobody except reporters is watching all of these. When you get down to two candidates, a couple of nationally-televised debates is enough.
Seven three-hour debates! That prospect alone is enough to make everyone hope that Romney wins. 
Not to mention he can formulate a sentence, rather than just pander to the racist vote - a conservative staple for the past 40+ years.
One of the President’s job is to run for re-election. He’d make time to debate as often as the Republican candidate wanted to his (or her) ass handed to them.
Well of course Gingrich wants as many debates as possible he’s still on a book tour. The goal is to make money. Even in his self deluded world I think even he realizes he has no chance at the presidency.
There are going to be four of them, and they have already been scheduled.
http://www.2012presidentialelectionnews.com/2012-debate-schedule/2012-presidential-debate-schedule/
That’s three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate. That’s what we’ve had every election since 1976 and people seem to like it that way. This will probably not change in our lifetimes.
No, he wouldn’t and no, it wouldn’t.
And no, it isn’t (a President’s job to run for re-election, that is).
Seriously?
Can you make a justification of this in real-world terms? Not as some abstract philosophy about what should be, but in terms of what is?
Sure. It isn’t a part of his job. It’s only the job of a candidate for POTUS. I know of nothing that mandates a sitting President must run again.
I missed the edit window while I was doing it, but a quick google shows that of the 44 people who have been president, at least a dozen were not on the ballot for re-election after their first term. Some may have simply not been nominated by their party, I suppose, but not all. LBJ is the most recent POTUS who didn’t run for re-election after this first term.