I think that the narrative from an unchallenged primary will leak through to the mainstream. Lets face it, we’re gonna have months of these and people aren’t going to simply be ignorant of it if they don’t watch Fox. There will be stories on the internet about how well so-and-so did in the debates, there will be clips of it in the local nightly news, newspapers (what’s left of them) will still cover them, comedians will mock them but there will be less mocking because there is a friendly moderator.
The worst thing realistically I see coming from this is simply someone getting through it without some kind of major gaffe. Then suddenly, because people have short memories, it’ll be generic Republican vs. Democrat, and oh look how badly the Democrat did in their debate because they were challenged, and the Republican sailed through looking presidential. Sure, they’ll be challenged then, but even Romney’s 1st debate win didn’t move the needle much according to Nate Silver. If the GOP candidate makes it to the regular debate relatively unscathed, it might be too late
I don’t understand how this would change any of that. With moderators pandering to the base, there would be an increase in the crazy, not a reduction of it. If you give people more opportunity and more incentive to make extreme and outlandish statements that will be interpreted as gaffes, they will make more gaffes. How is it possible to argue against that?
That’ll be the interesting bit. Friendly media only, friendly moderator, “speaking to the base”. Admiral Ackbar screaming “ITS A TRAP!” in the background.
Anyone with half a nano-gram of common sense has to know that you’re still going to be operating under the same net rules as previous years. Stupid and outlandish statements may play well to the basest of the base but are still going to cost you the nomination in the end. And if it doesn’t, and they play this insular game all the way through and nominate an extremist, the election will be even more of a curb-stomping than Reagan-Mondale.
Which probably wouldn’t be a bad thing. Give the rabid conservatives their True Scotsman and watch him get trounced harder than any of their Moderates have. Then they can’t keep pushing this crazy ‘moderates don’t win’ angle.
If the field includes Tea Party favorites and the moderators include Levin, Hannity or Limbaugh – that is not going to minimize the occurrence of soundbite-bombs. Quite the reverse.
Yeah, what qualifies as a “softball” question to the base isn’t going to look that way to the rest of the country. The questions those friendly moderators are going to give them are going to be the ones that let them give answers that make the audience cheer. But we’ve already seen what kind of answers make the right-wing base cheer. Let it all out, so we can drain the pus from this abscess on good government.
By excluding NBC, the GOP will ensure lower ratings for the debate. NBC will do well, as they will be the only major network able to scoop up the vast majority of couch potatoes with limited interest in politics.
But soundbites are a result of the number of debates I think, not the questions. Fox wants ratings as much as any other network. I would think you would want a small number of debates with high ratings in a short contest.
This presumes most of the gaffes were induced by unfriendly moderators, which was not the case in 2012. Most were unforced errors like Perry forgetting the third branch of government he was going to shut down, or Romney announcing he was “severely conservative”. No, there will be no shortage of damning clips for NBC and CNN to cherry-pick to make GOP candidates look foolish, and that will be the only view people will see on those networks. If the Republicans want to cede control of their message to undecided voters outside of the Fox News bubble, I won’t stand in their way.
With conservative moderators I don’t see how the candidates will differentiate from each other. It will basically be just a check list of conservative loyalty oath items on which all candidates agree.
Moderator: What do you think of Obama care
Candidate 1: I think it is the worst idea in the last 100 years.
Candidate 2: I think its the worst idea in the last 1,000 years.
Candidate 3: I thinks its the worst idea since Eve ate the apple.
You might as well just go through the list and have a show of hands like they did with evolution in their previous debate.
Realistically, I don’t think that will be asked. I think we don’t give a lot of credit (rightfully so in most cases) to these conservative pundits because part of their schtick is to appeal to the base and fire them up. On Fox News or their AM radio stations, 100% of things they say are idiotic and inflammatory and as liberals or moderates, we can’t possibly get worked up over every single thing
What worries me is similar to what happened in the first presidential debate. Romney did a full about-face and argued practically the opposite of what he’s been preaching for months, nobody was prepared for that. I can very easily see the likes of Hannity or Limbaugh, knowing they already have the base, completely ignoring questions about birth control (which they know don’t play well to moderates) and spending 2 hours talking about Benghazi, the IRS “scandal”, the NSA, the bad parts of the economy (and they’ll never even imply the economy is doing well), and various other things that, given no opposing views, sounds like a damning critique of Democrats. Couldn’t you see them asking questions on California’s “failing” economy, the “unpopularity” of Obamacare, or hell, even fucking “bowing” to the Saudi king that gives the candidates the freedom to go on a completely fact-free rant against Obama and Democrats?
Talking to a friendly audience is when they say the more outlandish things, like the 47% remark. If they are all being lobbed softballs, there is going to be a powerful incentive to differentiate themselves from the next guy by appearing even more conservative. This always leads to Gaffe City. I support this plan wholeheartedly.
Again, how would this be different than the primaries in 2012 when every Republican ran to the right in every debate and immediately repudiated any sentence that could be interpreted as moderate or insufficiently anti-Obama?
And nobody is suggesting that this will happen in the presidential debates. Neither Hannity nor Limbaugh has a chance at those.
Yeah, I could see a situation where there is a wholly phony-GOP-world-view atmosphere to the questions and answers, without any pesky ‘real journalists’ present to provide any fact-checking like happened to Romney one of the debates.
But then again, the GOP surprises again and again with how awful they are. Once they get together on their home turf over a smorgasbord of red meat, who knows what kind of circus they’ll create? Still, it is their primary, so let 'em screw it up however they like
This isn’t going to happen. Limbaugh and Beck aren’t journalists or even serious people - they are entertainers and have a vested interest in seeing it turn into a trainwreck. More listeners for them! The serious people in the party know this and won’t let it happen.
After that, none of the even semi-serious people at Fox are going to accept forever more being known as “The one who hosted the right-wing debate.” That rules out Chris Wallace, Megyn Kelly, Shepard Smith, Greta Van Sustreren, etc. Fox News has people that would be willing to do it (Hannity, Eric Bolling, the three morning morons) but it would be such a joke any candidate participating would have to answer questions about it for a week during valuable campaign season.
Lastly, NBC or CNN could just wait until a few debates have been done and announce their own. The candidates at the bottom of the ladder will gladly accept the free air time and the leaders will be forced to attend just to defend themselves. They can’t give anyone two hours of free time to get bashed.
I agree with the last paragraph, but I have to tell you that I have very, very, very serious doubts that the serious people in the party have enough control nowadays.
The Tea Partiers and extreme conservatives do not surprise me anymore with their willingness to poke the eyes of even the serious people in their party.
It’s a strangely curious thing that the RNC doesn’t see that it isn’t the moderators or the media that’s the problem, it’s the message and conduct of the Republican Party. I sincerely believe that the Southern Strategy chickens are coming home to roost and Republicans no longer has strong demographic to form a coalition to win the Presidency in my lifetime. It was a good, deficit-laden run while it lasted.
I just keep thinking of the whole “47%” fiasco. Denying it was said in the face of video proof, even now. I can only imagine what kind of incredibly stupid and crazy things will be said by the real nutbars when they think they’re only speaking to their base.
And how they’ll blame the media for ‘lying’ about it or turning it into a scandal.
