A lot of people seem really disturbed that polls are going to be used to determine who will and will not be on the stage for the first couple of Republican debates. I’ll admit that there are a number of problems with this approach, but the only other viable solution I can think of would be to have several debates and randomize which candidates will appear in each one.
Let’s start with a basic premise. It’s not worth having a debate at all if no one has more than a few minutes to talk. I think ten people is already too big, and I actually think five participants is pushing the edge of pointlessness. So, it’s completely justifiable to create some arbitrary cutoff.
Then you need some criteria that you can use to justify excluding folks. And once you’ve vetted the candidates to make sure that they’ve filed the paperwork to run and submitted financial statements that prove that they’re taking steps in that direction, there isn’t any better objective measure than an average of polls.
Honestly, what else could you use? How much money they’ve raised? How many elected officials have endorsed their campaigns?
No matter what you do, it will be somewhat unfair and it will create some kind of perverse incentive.
Now, if I had to devise a fair system, I’d count up how many people have met the basic requirements and divide by four. If there are twelve candidates, I’ll throw their names in a hat and create three separate debates with four candidates each. If they are 16 candidates, then I’ll have four debates. If they are nineteen, then I’ll have five and the last one only have three participants.
If you want, you can do the same thing but instead of dividing by four, you could divide by five, six, or seven.
Anything more than seven strikes me as clearly a waste of everyone’s time. At eight candidates, a two-hour debate would leave each candidate less than 15 minutes of total time, owing to the time wasted on introductions, questions, cross-talk, and a commercial break or two. At ten candidates, they’re fighting to get close to twelve minutes of total time. And that’s if the debate is a full two hours. I think historically a lot of debates have been only 90 minutes long.
With my solution of limiting each debate to four participants, they’d have close to a half-hour each in a two-hour debate and still more than 20 minutes each in a ninety-minute debate.
Obviously, there are some practicalities that I’m discounting a bit. Most obviously, there’s the problem with having moderators available for up to five debates, and then there’s the need for an audience and the issue with broadcasting them in near-equal near-contemporaneous primetime slots.
I’m not saying that the logistics here are easy but, where possible, simple randomness is a better introduction of unfairness than the design they’ve gone with, and randomness is hard to game and doesn’t create perverse incentives to act like a clown or a loudmouth or the biggest fire-breathing partisan of the bunch.
So, let me do this. Let me put the candidates’ names in a hat and create the debates.
For our purposes, I am going with 17 candidates, so, three debates of four and one debate of five.
I think it turned out pretty well considering it was random.
At our first debate, we’ll have five participants. It’s going to have a bit of a Mid-Atlantic flavor and the headliner is going to be New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who is grateful for the spotlight. He’ll have to contend with culture warriors Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Ben Carson of Maryland, and he’ll need to out-hawk Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The last participant is former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore who will be able to discuss Christie’s actual record as an executive. This is the only debate without a frontrunner, but that could make it interesting for precisely that reason.
Our second debate will have some real fireworks. Through the luck of the draw, Jeb Bush has been matched up with The Donald, and The Donald has been matched up against his newfound nemesis, former Texas Governor Rick Perry. Perry, of course, is currently under a first-degree felony indictment, which should make for a lively topic of conversation. Also, Perry recently called Trump a cancer on conservatism. In the middle of this madness, milquetoast former New York Governor George Pataki will try to be earnest and serious. Ha! Good luck with that! The big question here is whether Jeb can escape without getting all kind of ick stuck to him.
In the third debate our headliner will be Marco Rubio, but we can call this the “Cuban debate” because it will also feature Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Something tells me that both men are disappointed by this draw. These two senators will have to scrap it out with Ohio Governor John “I Hate Hip-Hop” Kasich and former Arkansas Governor Mike “Everything is the Holocaust” Huckabee. What this will really be is an opportunity for Kasich and Rubio to square off for the gravitas prize. But it won’t be easy with Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee squealing about the imminent death of everyone from Iranian Electromagnetic Pulse space weapons.
Our last debate will be headlined by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. He’ll be the one to defend orthodox movement conservatism against the pseudo-libertarian stylings of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Which one is the “authentic” conservative? While those two gentleman square off, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal will take time off from his exorcisms to talk about how he’s the most Christian man in America. And business woman and former CEO Carly Fiorina will wonder how she ended up down the rabbit hole and on the wrong side of the looking glass.
Say what you want about these hypothetical debates, but we’d learn more from them than we’ll ever learn from ten-people debates. And it’s a fair system to start things out. You know, there would be winners and losers and poll movement resulting from these debates, and eventually the polling data might be more meaningful and a better way of excluding some folks.
Which debate would you want to watch?
[Cross-posted at Progress Pond]
Honestly? I don’t give a shit about any of those clowns. Whatever subset you put together is just going to be a pukefest. Who cares?
That’s actually something I hoped to demonstrate by doing this exercise.
Since the media’s just going to replay the same two or three 17 second sound bites over and over, that’s another (and in my opinion, the most significant) reason to say WGAF.
You could also have a “Finalists” debate between the winners of the four first round debates. The winners to be decided by TV polls straight after the debate or by a randomized live audience vote. Having viewers vote increases the sense of audience participation.
The Eurovision song contest did something similar when the numbers went up to 40 countries. Two semifinals of 20 songs, and then a finals night with the most voted for 10 from each.
Of course if you really wanted to introduce a bit of reality TV, you could have contestants also squaring off to see who could do basic tasks most quickly – like tying their own shoe laces, memorizing a script, quoting from the Bible or the collected works of Ayn Rand etc…. in fact you could invent a whole new game show format around the debates…
I’m all for it if it takes place on a desert island and they have to start their own fires.
I was thinking more on the lines of pointing out Iran on a map and then being able to press a “nuke” button… Anyone who nukes the wrong country gets eliminated…
The Perfessor beat you on a contest proposal:
Rick Perry to Donald Trump: You, me, pull-up contest
“quoting from the Bible or the collected works of Ayn Rand”
But it’s the same thing, isn’t it?
Another wonderful thought exercise by you that basically no one else thinks to do. For the record, I would refuse to watch any of the possible permutations.
Of course something like this would be the way to go if a party wanted to “showcase” all its simply wonderful 17+ candidates—“They’re ALL Great!!” But I think Repub cogs getting to know each of these shit candidates is the last thing Team Conservative wants. They wanted to have an early front runner selected by the establishment that gassed all the other midget clowns and cranks in the car and not have a replay of the “bitter” primary of 2012. Citizens United has put paid to that pipe dream strategy and the Coaches of Team Conservative are apparently too stupid to understand it.
As a matter of simple party control, one would think that a chunk of Repubs would join with the Dems and pass the constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United and send it to the states, the only possible fix. That would seem to be in their political interest, but they have elected so many self-retarded imbeciles that they can’t tie their own shoes. Fie on their whole rotten corrupt organization.
I’d make an effort to watch all of them. Although the live blogs can be almost as entertaining, even if they distort the actual debate proceedings.
Oh, good, Firedoglake is dead.
I will not miss their breathlessness even a tiny bit. There was always something odd about their particular hatred for Obama.
Anyone who thinks there’s no stupid on the Democratic side of the spectrum need look no further than FDL.
I see you, Loomis and Lemieux have to get your hippie punching on. I still find it funny that people think Hamsher was a Clinton supporter. If she was, she was certainly willing to bash other Clinton supporters(remember that video of crazed Clinton supporters at the DNC meeting re: Florida and Michigan delegates?)
you insult hippies.
Hamsher was (and is) a Hamsher supporter, first and foremost.
I’d go for a Jeopardy style format:
“I’ll take The Budget Deficit for $100, Reince.”
“The answer is: Increased Revenues.”
“BZZZT!”
“Senator Graham?”
“What is the result of increasing taxes?”
“No! Absolutely not!”
“BZZZT!”
“Governor Christie?”
“What is the effect of REDUCING taxes?”
[Applause]
Sounds great except that “reducing taxes” would be the answer to every question (other than “Ronald Regan,” “9/11” and “Benghazi”).
None.
I agree. What’s the point? I already know which Republican I won’t be voting for: whichever one they nominate.
I hate reality television. However, I will admit that the trash tv that I love watching every four years is the Republican debate and making house parties out of it. Quite enjoyable. Everyone loves a good train wreck, and, well…I’m not above it lol.
Although the nagging suspicion that I am ringside at the twilight of empire is disturbing; like attending Caligula’s circuses.
This!
Whomever gets to charge advertisers to place ads during the debates would not be happy with your solution. Without the 600 pound gorilla, it’s all a big snore. What we hate most about politics is the very height of schadenfreude when applied to one’s enemies.
Which debate would I want to watch?
The one where somebody breaks Trump.
Totally.
The rest of it?
Total bullshit.
AG
He’s spent more time in front of the TV camera than most of them and apparently understands the media more clearly. We’ll see. If he starts talking warmly about ‘morning in America’ all bets are off.
…now that I’ve whittled them all down to toothpicks. LOL
Bartertown Crowd: Two men enter, one man leave!
The hosts, moderators and participants not named Trump haven’t the faintest clue what they are doing:
Even his opponent’s staff are enabling Trump just by discussing him publicly. Not to mention the wrong-footing of the king-makers, for example:
And:
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2015
Man, do I ever despair, as Charles Pierce says, of the re-branding. LOL. But it’s all about Trump and will remain so for now; much to the delight and amusement of his growing cohort of supporters. Yikes.
Some one is super bored.
I think I’d rather hear you talk about FDL shutting down and Jane Hamsher.
I believe the Donald has some sort of teevee show that winnows a large group of candidates down to a single winner. Perhaps we should let him run the process.
The real problem is no one is really running the GOP and the GOP isn’t really interested in the job of governing. There was a time when to even consider running you had to muster support from party bosses and boss wannabes. And those bosses had a longer view beyond the election to consider what was needed to actually get the job of office done well enough to win the following election.