I’ve grown a little tired of the endless back-and-forth in the Obama threads, so I was hoping to have a political debate without reference to any particular candidates or current events.
The question I’d like to debate is how to evaluate the responsibility of candidates for attacks made on their behalf. It seems to me that there are about five major categories to look at:
- Attacks by senior members of the campaign (e.g., David Axelrod)
- Attacks by other members of the campaign (e.g., volunteers, informal advisors)
- Attacks by accepted endorsers of the campaign (e.g., MoveOn, Sen. Lieberman)
- Attacks by the party establishment behind the campaign (e.g., RNC, DNC, etc.)
- Attacks by parties with no formal connection to the campaign (e.g, Sean Hannity)
Part of this is a question of fact. Those that appear to be in category 5 may in fact be in one of the other categories. But putting aside those questions of fact, what ought to be the responsibility of the candidate for each category?
I’d like to keep this debate at a hypothetical level, if at all possible.
My own view is that it is fair to presume (rebuttably) that a candidate is responsible for 1 & 4. We should judge a candidate for attacks from those categories unless it can be shown that the candidate did not endorse those attacks at the time, regardless of whether a candidate later disavows the attack. Candidates should be taken at their word when asked whether they support the comments of 2, 3 & 5, and if the attacks are egregious enough, should be expected to denounce them. Even if the attacks come from a 5, a candidate should denounce attacks with which they disagree when asked about them, and actively do so even if not asked if there is a widespread, concerted effort by category 5 to attack unfairly.
What say you all?