Presidential Debates Should Be More Frequent, and Tougher on Candidates

The presidency is powerful—entirely too powerful. Through mission creep, popular acclaim, and abandonment of responsibility by the legislative branch, the nation's chief executive has gained near-unilateral authority to wage war and is rapidly acquiring similarly monarchical say over domestic policy. But the office is still elected. The American people are entitled to job interviews with hopeful candidates. Unfortunately, presidential "debates" barely fill that role, least of all the choreographed kabuki meet-ups between Joe Biden and Donald Trump scheduled for this summer.

Rule-Bound Meetups

"Trump feeds off the crowd, they give him life," an anonymous Biden adviser told Politico about the exclusion of audiences from the events. "We wanted to take that away."

Biden's people are afraid that speaking in front of living, breathing humans plays to the presumed Republican candidate's strengths (and, conversely, to Biden's weaknesses), so they want it off the table. But that's only one constraint placed on the gatherings planned for June 27 and September 10, specified by the Biden campaign and agreed to by Trump's camp. The debates will bypass the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates and be hosted by CNN (June) and ABC News (September). They'll exclude other presidential candidates. And the meetups will follow kindergarten rules, with the participants allowed to speak only in turn while the other candidate's microphone is off.

This year's strange, rule-bound "debates" are the inevitable culmination of a long process of making the meetups as easy as possible for Democratic and Republican standard-bearers. The Commission on Presidential Debates, which is so aggrieved to have been sidelined, was itself created by the major parties to craft situations friendly to their candidates after independent organizations, such as the League of Women Voters, refused to oblige.

"The League of Women Voters is withdrawing its sponsorship of the presidential debate scheduled for mid-October because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter," League President Nancy M. Neuman responded in 1988 to rule-setting collaboration between Democrats and Republicans. "It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and honest answers to tough questions."

Bypassing the Commission, itself a creature of the parties, in favor of candidate-friendly arrangements between the campaigns formalizes a setup that long ago abandoned externally imposed discipline. Now that decades have gone by since an outside organization put the screws to campaign machines and memories have faded, the charade can be dropped.

Convenient Staging

Speaking of fading memories, keen political observers will note that the 2024 presidential election will be in November. That's two months after the second and, supposedly, final debate. It's fair to assume that the Biden camp, in particular (Trump is pushing for more matchups), hopes that a poor performance that can't be edited will be forgotten by election day.

The first debate is scheduled for June, before either the Democratic convention in August or the Republican convention in July, so neither Biden nor Trump will yet be their political party's official standard-bearer. They'll probably be nominated, but technically they'll just be likely contenders.

The suspicion here is that the June 10 gathering was scheduled so early because normal people will more likely be heading out for summer vacations than tuning into politics. A disastrous performance by an ancient politician who may be well past his sell-by date leaves time to slip somebody new into the gig after a few weeks of behind-the-scenes maneuvering and backstabbing by would-be replacements.

The exclusion of other presidential candidates, especially Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is aggravating but no surprise. In its day, the Commission on Presidential Debates only ever allowed one outsider candidate to debate. That was Ross Perot in 1992, who was polling strongly and went on to win 19 percent of the vote after performing well on stage. The Commission kept Perot out in 1996 and never again allowed an independent or third-party hopeful into the club.

Polls show an average of around 10 percent support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and nobody is entirely certain how his candidacy affects Biden and Trump, so it's understandable the major-party campaigns would want to exclude the independent (though Trump is signaling openness to a three-way debate). But voters are lukewarm to the name-brand options, favoring replacements for both when asked, and might well want to see what one or more alternatives have to offer.

Another disservice to the public is cutting off the microphone for whichever candidate isn't speaking. Conventional wisdom has it that this hurts Trump, who has a nasty habit of interrupting his opponents. But the former president's abrasive antics aren't universally popular. Voters should get to see the two political retreads spar on stage so they can judge such interactions for themselves.

Debates Should Be Hard on Candidates

Unfortunately, some people seem to think the purpose of political debates (or "debates") isn't to test the candidates' mettle against one another, but to nudge the system towards a preferred outcome.

"Donald Trump and President Biden should engage in no one-on-one debates," academic and frequent commentator John McWhorter cautioned last week. "And Biden's just-announced decision to participate in two debates is an error that overly validates Trump."

McWhorter is usually a sharp and reasonable thinker, but his concern that Trump could "distort a debate into a cage-fight" and leave Biden battered is badly misplaced. Trump is validated not by sharing a stage with an opponent, but by the millions of Americans who support his candidacy. A candidate who isn't up to taking on a political rival in a televised setting is probably even less prepared for high-stakes decisions and behind-the-scenes confrontations with world leaders.

If that's the case, it's not time to forego debates, but for Democrats to swap out Biden for an alternative who is up to the challenge of answering questions, thinking in the moment, and trading barbs. The timing of that June 10 meetup suggests that somebody is thinking along those lines.

Ultimately, debates aren't supposed to serve the purposes of candidates and their campaigns. So long as the presidency wields vast powers—and that doesn't seem likely to change soon—the voters should be able to test applicants for the job. If the candidates dislike those tests, so much the better.