I think the early debates should include every announced candidate from each party. But once the campaign has been underway for a while, you can tell which dogs aren’t going to hunt. Say after December 1 when things start to get serious, you have to have at least 5% support in any major poll to participate. Did anyone actually enjoy Alan Keyes being invited to the Des Moines debate? Likewise in the general election, if a minor party can show 5% support, it gets a podium for the debates. If not, too bad.
Plus ten points for Billdo. Excellently put, sir.
Apparently not. You can’t even spell his name right.
Again, your attitude turns the whole process into a self-fulfilling prophecy, whereby we anoint the viable candidates, who then feel free to talk about whatever they want within the narrow confines of what constitutes mainstream political debate in this country. We, as a people, should expect more.
If the news media overseeing these “debates” actually asked some penetrating, policy-oriented questions of the candidates, and insisted upon straight answers rather than PR waffling, i wouldn’t have any trouble with excluding people like Kucinich or Ron Paul. But the fact is that, in responding to the tame bullshit offered by the debate moderators, these candidates often raise issues and policy considerations that need to be raised, even if we don’t always agree with their particular solution.
I’m afraid i just never understand people who deliberately seek to narrow already razor-thin limits of mainstream political discussion in this country.
Congratulations on reiterating Talking Point #23 from the Moron’s Book of Political Argument.
Actually, i don’t blame NBC for this as much as i blame the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, the DNC itself is only concerned with a very narrow range of opinion, and with who can raise the most cash.
God, i thought the “Blame Nader for Bush” idiots had all crawled back into the fetid cesspool that spawned them. Democrats who still whine about this are almost worse than Republicans who still think that Bush is a good president.
Well then, as i suggested in my last post, the networks should not abrogate their responsibility as hosts and as an allegedly independent press. Instead of lobbing softballs and settling for whatever PR patter the candidates feel like throwing back, they should ask some hard questions.
Instead of dignifying internet rumors that Obama is a Muslim who was sworn into the Senate on a Koran (yes, this was actually raised by the moderator at a recent debate), maybe they could really go hard at him and the other candidates about their policies, about possible inconsistencies in their policies, and about other things that actually matter. I don’t particularly want or need Dennis Kucinich there, but i would like it if these debates were more about substance than show.
You exceeded your 30 second time limit on that post. 
I’m all for Kucinich being in this upcoming debate. Elizabeth would make lovely eye candy and would raise the ratings through the roof, especially if she did a tasteful dance around the podium.
Oh, you meant Dennis. Bummer.
Clearly, you know nothing about American electoral politics.
Awww, no more UFO questions?
Look, even if he was in the debate they wouldn’t treat him as a serious candidate.
I don’t think Tim Russert asking Kucinich about his UFO experience was a softball. Kucinich’s weasel-worded response – combined with his lack of any appreciable support in the polls – is more than enough reason not to invite him back to the table again and again. He’s shared the stage in what – at the very least four major debates in the last six months – and he got 1.3% of the vote in New Hampshire. I’d be shocked if he wins a single pledged delegate to the August convention.
The guy has had his chance. He ran four years ago, he’s been on a number of nationally televised debates already, and he is a non-factor. NBC calling a spade a spade doesn’t make them the bad guy.
Without going quoted point by quoted point with you, I think you misunderstand my point. You portray me as one “who deliberately seek[s] to narrow already razor-thin limits of mainstream political discussion in this country.” I’m not. Instead, though our system is kind of crazy, I think that our system of starting off with the small-states of Iowa and New Hampshire provides a great opportunity for people with little more than enough money to rent a campaign bus to go out and try to reach the voters. Kucinich (and forgive me for not taking the time to memorize the spelling of the marginal canddiate’s name) had his opportunity to connect with the voters of those states, including participating in numerous debates, and he failed to convince them to vote for him over the others in the race. Similarly, polls show he does not appeal to the voters anywhere else. (Note that success in Iowa or New Hampshire or standing in the national polls are the criteria that NBC used to pick who to include in and who to exclude from the debate.)
Up until Iowa and New Hampshire, a candidate can convince himself or herself that he or she is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and his or her message is really connecting with the voters. However, those states are where the rubber meets the road – where the wild dreams of pretenders have to face people actually casting ballots for their candidates. Candidates grounded in reality will quickly drop out when they have their secret hopes that the pollsters were wrong dashed by the election returns. Although candidates with substantial minorities of the vote can shape the race or have a genuine expectation that other states will turn out better, those who campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire and only get a trickle of votes should know enough to hang it up. If they decide to quixotically continue until the last windmill is tilted at, that’s lovely for them, but I really don’t want them to interfere with my efforts to actually pick someone who might be able to win in the general election.
Yes, marginal candidates can sometimes raise issues that increasingly asinine news anchors might not, but once more they had their chance to connect on those issues and, guess what, they didn’t.
You complain that: “Unfortunately, the DNC itself is only concerned with a very narrow range of opinion, and with who can raise the most cash.” Unfortunately, those things are what get candidates elected, and getting their candidates elected is what the DNC is, quite properly, concerned with. It’s not a debating club, it’s a political party.
Similarly, the news media is interested in following candidates that could possibly win. “Look at this unrealistic fellow who is soldiering on to push his offbeat ideas,” is a good human interest story, but it isn’t and shouldn’t be the meat of political reporting.
Like it or not, Democratic voters in the early states and Democratic poll responders have given their overwhelming support to the three mainstream Democratic candidates. From what I see, most Democrats are pretty happy with the three leaders, and prefer them strongly over any of their potential rivals. This may be based on their policy views, personal magnetism, demographic category, or perceived electability, but for whatever reason, there it is. It’s too bad for him, but Kucinich (damn his name is spelled as goofy as he looks) just didn’t make the big time, and I spill no tears that his lawsuit to get into the playground with the big kids didn’t win.
And my little anecdote about Messrs. Nader, Gore and Bush wasn’t there to whine about the results, but to point out that in the winner-take-all American system, when a splinter candidate runs, he or she can knock out a mainstream candidate who his or her supporters might otherwise strongly prefer. Although centrist independent candidates cause unpredictable results, a right-wing splinter candidate undoubtedly draws voters from the center-right candidate and a left-wing candidate undoubtedly draws voters from the center-left candidates.
If you’re looking for a robust debate over the direction of a political party, please feel free to go across the aisle. There you have candidates representing a wide spectrum of differing views, none of which the media is rushing to anoint as the leader. In fact, there the system worked to promote an obscure, underfunded candidate, Mike Huckabee, based on his actual, on the ground appeal to a large segment of Republican voters, in contrast to his better known and funded opponent Fred Thompson, who was supposed to appeal to those same voters. But on the Democratic side, please don’t whine that your guy couldn’t make it after his shot in the minor leagues and now isn’t allowed to play in the majors.
Please point out where i said it was.
The issue, though, is whether Russert and other political commentators are just as aggressive with the big candidates. And the fact is, they’re not. Hell, Tim Russert’s middle name is “Softball,” as far as i can tell from his interviewing style.
ETA:
And Billdo, you’ll forgive me if i don’t find your “What is, is right” sophistry particularly compelling. Your assessment of “What is” might be on the mark in a lot of ways, but your willingness to shrug and play the game is part of why national politics sucks so badly.
Fair enough, and I’m not really happy with the way the game is played for many of the same reasons you aren’t, but someone like Dennis Kucinich isn’t going to change it. (Oddly enough, I have a vain hope that someone like Barack Obama has a slim possibility to change the system if he can have the right balance of pragmatic insider and resolute outsider. Probably won’t happen, though.)
National politics doesn’t suck that badly. At least it makes sure whack jobs like Kucinich don’t become president.
I hoper you’re right, but i’m not especially sanguine about the possibility.
It’s worked out well for us over the past seven years, i’ll give you that.
You get presidents you don’t like who do things you disagree with sometimes. It’s not an indictment of the system…just of the individual. There’s no governmental system out there that will guarantee that your leader will be someone you like…in a country as big and as diverse as the US, how could there be?
Do you honestly think this is a softball lobbed toward the Democratic candidate who enjoyed a sizable lead in the national polls at the time? Be sure to watch for the punchline at about 1:20, and Clinton’s reaction at 1:28.
And you seem to be pretty much alone thinking Russert lobs softballs. Media Matters has this recap of how Russert moderated his last Democratic debate, and it starts off with six bulletpoints about how tough Russert was with the top candidate on stage.
I’m left to conclude that you don’t know the difference between Tim Russert and a Russet potato.
I don’t think he’s a softball lobber, but I don’t think that question was all that great. She is not her husband. It was easy to disarm that question, and she handled it well.
The problem a lot of people seem to have with Russert is that he isn’t assertive enough to challenge the people he interviews when they make obviously false statements. I think he does a decent job, given the format and time constraints of his program. Still, Cheney is famous for exploiting this aspect of Meet the Press.
Exactly. Toughest questions in the business, but little to no serious follow-up, especially on facts (as opposed to contradiction).
If weasel worded responses are your criterion ,the next debate would be empty. The question is important ,but a follow up is often more so.
Historically we have not voted for 3rd and 4th parties. But, the opportunity to offer less main stream ideas can make the electorate more aware . I think Libertarians and Greens etc should be given the national stage. They wont win but will force the debate to deal with important issues that are being ignored.
If you want to complain about how Russert runs Meet the Press, go ahead. I think it’s the best and most informative of any of the shows of its type.
But I’m trying to wrap my head around the suggestion that a moderator in a debate ought to jump in to question what candidates have said. In my book, a debate isn’t an interview, and the stage belongs to the candidates, and the candidates are the ones who ought to be challenging what others have said. I don’t see that as the proper role of a debate moderator.
And I think Russert does an excellent job in the debates of teeing up specific questions to candidates that really aren’t softballs. One could say that the questions are on issues that don’t matter (eg, asking Obama what his favorite Bible passage is) but they certainly do as well as I’ve seen in getting candidates off their talking points. I think Russert makes a better moderator than Jim Leher, for example.
So, if you all think Russert sucks, which debate moderators do you think have done a good job?
(Addendum: I didn’t see the most recent “subdued” debate, which IIRC Russert moderated.)