I guess it is too late now, but: President Biden should have insisted on getting his care from a family medicine doc affiliated with Howard University Hospital, traveling to the nearest doctor’s office just like a regular Joe, and asking to be treated as such. He would probably get better care than through the military VIP channel, and the unstated message of respect for African-Americans would have been heard in a way his promise to appoint a Black Supreme Court justice never was (maybe even if the family medicine doc turned out to be white).
He takes the test. Probably does fine. And then the conspiracy theorists chime in - he cheated, the test was rigged, somebody else took it, etc. You don’t beat this crowd by playing the game by their rules. It is, by the very nature of the game, impossible to do that.
It’s not that nobody is acknowledging it, it’s that there’s not really a viable alternative. There’s only so much time/effort that should be devoted to hypotheticals when actual issues occupy a lot of time.
Nonviable alternatives also abound, of course, but there’s little point to considering those.
The move, which followed months of wrangling between the RNC and the commission, will potentially deprive voters of seeing Republican and Democratic candidates on the same stage.
The Republicans do not want to debate Democrats because they don’t come out very well. Trump is not going to debate Biden. This is just not an option.
Oh sure, there you go again denying that Biden should offer to debate first by simply using the Whitehouse time machine to go back before the Republican Party withdraws from U.S. commission on Presidential debates.
You know you can offer to debate without your opponent belonging to a commission on debates, right? It’s not like they have a monopoly on Presidential debates.
In fact, I’d rub the Republican’s noses in their withdrawal from the commission, ask them what they’ve got to hide, tell them Joe is fired up and ready to go as soon as they get their act together, etc.
Then every time Biden is on the stump he should mention that it’s day 32 or whatever of Trump being too scared to debate, because he knows he’s an idiot who can’t do the job.
The Republicans exiting the commission is a freebie, an easy layup for Democrats. They hurt themselves because of their paranoia or because they are trying to protect Trump from debating. Make them pay for that.
The worst thing that happened to Presidential debates (or so I am consistently told) was the establishment of that commission and the loss of the organization by the League of Women Voters. I would have more respect for Biden if he was willing to cut that commission out entirely and constantly attack Trump for not debating as Sam has suggested.
The League of Women’s Voters is nominally non-partisan, but has taken positions on issues, including gun control, putting this in question. If Trump refused to attend a LWV-sponsored debate, I couldn’t much blame him.
The Commission on Presidential Debates is a long-established umpire organization that is played the way umpires often are. There is no alternative mechanism to organize a fair debate.
There is a game that will be played where Biden will agree to participate under Commission rules, which are even-handed, and Trump will try to say that Biden is being stubborn and unfair in not being willing to debate under GOP terms. I presume both sides are gaming out their tactics here.
Why would the US President debate some orange schmoe who hasn’t even won his party’s nomination? Once that happens, sure let’s do it. Until then this isn’t even close to appropriate. It’s stupid and a smoke screen.
I may have missed something, assuming that the discussion was about debating after nomination conventions. There is no fair mechanism to organize debates before, regardless of whether one of the nomination front-runners is a schmoe.
Yeah, that’s certainly what I meant. No one debates their general election foes during the primaries. I’m assuming it will be Trump vs Biden, which is the way to bet at this time.
As for the debates, it’s hard to argue that they are run well. The whole format is stupid, meant more to protect the candidates than inform the public.
Once we are down to the two challengers, they should debate by sitting down at a table across from each other. Take questions from each other, and take questions from the public. I’m tired of hack newscasters asking loaded or stupid questions.
And 30 second answer/rebuttal stuff is ridiculous when you are down to 2 candidates. I’d rather hear how a candidate can field a long form answer.
The other common objection is that candidates who are no-chancers, polling under 15 percent and/or not on enough ballots to win the electoral college, are excluded from debates. Seems reasonable to me, but, obviously, the no-chancers dislike it.
There really is no correct answer to these concerns.
The Commission is half-Democratic, half-Republican, and all-fair.
Not likely to impact the election but I found this fascinating: Biden’s great-great-grandfather was pardoned by Abraham Lincoln for stabbing a man with his pocketknife during a brawl.