The Debates I'd Like to See, Part II

OK, for the primaries, I already advised both parties on a better way to get the candidates together to discuss the issues, now it's time to fix the debate structure for the general election (in a manner that neither party will ever agree to, unfortunately).

Here's what we need for the general election (it even has a catchy title)

THE GREAT AMERICAN WONK-OFF

Here's the set-up, after the RNC convention wraps up, and both candidates are set, they'll have a week to announce a team of advisers that will represent them on specific policy areas. Basically, I'd expect both candidates to all but announce their major cabinet picks, plus their top administrator. The furious five would be the presumptives of both parties for the position of Secretary of State, Defense, Treasury, Attorney General, as well as Chief of Staff. "Why those five?" you ask. Good question, here's the answer, State and Defense give the broader framework of international relations, and when it comes to the Executive branch, that's the one area that they have the most reach and power when compared to the other two branches, so it's crucial to know as much as possible about the kind of person a candidate is considering for those positions before voters are forced to make their choice. As far as domestic policy, Treasury and Attorney General are the two main surrogates, Treasury because economic policy is set by the President, and his choice there is a big signal as to what he thinks would be successful in helping America prosper, and the other big side of domestic policy is lawmaking, law interpretation, and criminal prosecution, and the AG is in charge of all that. The many other cabinet positions, and cabinet level offices have their roles (though many of them could be eliminated and folded into other offices), but to keep this from getting out of hand just a few big picture type folks are all that is necessary to make this more informative than the system we have now. That's why a Chief of Staff, as far as sub-Secretary level appointments, is someone I want to hear from as well. The kind of person a President chooses for Chief of Staff says a lot about a President, and it is one of the most purely political offices in the cabinet. Know who that pick will be, and you'll know what the real nuts and bolts of an administration will be like. It would be fascinating to hear prospective Chiefs hash out politics with each other.

Here's how the WONK-OFF would work. The two presumptive Secretaries of State would go at each other directly for two hours on matters of state. They'd alternate asking and answering questions. No moderator, no audience, just two policy wonks wonking off at each other. Whether they choose to really ask and answer questions, or just use their time to rattle off talking points would be up to each individual, but at least the information would be out there, and the personalities, politics, and positions of these people would be out there for everyone to observe. Repeat the above process for the other four official wonks, and you have yourself 10 hours of official head to head policy discussions a week.

We elect one person (well two people, but given that you can't split the Prez and VP votes, really you are only choosing the top of the ticket, the VP is just a bonus), but an entire team is who governs. I want to know who that team is before I vote, I want to hear the official surrogates battle each other directly on specific subject areas in an official capacity. I want the candidates to have to react to what their surrogates say and be forced to confirm or deny the direction they hope to take the country on a variety of issues.

A few tepid debates hosted by some media figure hardly scratches the surface of the real issues. Mostly they're just a chance for a candidate to not screw up and show how he reacts when off script. It's not enough anymore. A WONK-OFF would bring curious and engaged voters much more information than they now get, in a much more official way, and in a way that would be hard for media to spin (OK, harder). YouTube would fill up with clips from each Wonk-Off, and what our country might have in store depending on which choice voters make would just be a little bit clearer.

All five official wonks would have to WONK-OFF against each other once a week from the 3rd week of Sept to the last week of OCT. Spread out the WONK-OFFs by days of week, so State would be MON, Defense, would be TUE, and so on, with the Chiefs of Staff wonking off each other each Friday. That'd be six weeks of wonking off, six weeks of real policy discussions, or at least real screaming matches between equally matched surrogates from both sides. The Presidential Debates could be scheduled on Sundays so as not to overshadow the WONK-OFFs, but by having these on a regular schedule, and on a weekly basis, the campaign for ideas between each party would be forced into the forefront and would be battled in a face to face way without any media interference. I know the networks won't carry this, but CSPAN could, and the Internet can, and the soundbites would drive the cable news coverage after each debate. Instead of talking about pregnant daughters, the cable newsers and internet freaks would be forced to talk about actual policy discussions. I think that might be nice for a change.

Seems like this isn't such a radical suggestion, but I'm nearly certain nothing even close to approximating such a sane and informative approach would ever be attempted.

(and checking my old posts, I did sort of mention this idea before, but it's more fleshed out here)

Another In a Long Line of Posts Where I Claim Primacy With Regards to a Matter of Small Consequence . . .

Which fantastic idea I had this time that is suddenly being batted about?

Cross-party debates earlier in the election cycle.

I came up with the idea back in the middle of May, independently of my idea, Ann Althouse's son John, IM'ed her with a notion along those lines and she blogged about it, now Patrick Ruffini guest posting at Hugh Hewitt's blog also comes out for such a notion.

The pros for this are greater than the cons (at least if they follow my brilliant scheme). One of the main pros would be entertainment value. Politics should be engaging, and a broader group of folks will engage sooner if politics were more entertainingly combative. Right now we have a terrible combination, sure politics are combative, , but not in a manner that's instructive, intellectual or engaging. The sooner the better for forcing an honest intellectual, emotional and moral confrontation between the folks who hope to lead this nation. The other main pro would be that this would force candidates to campaign more like the person they will be in office rather than the person they think people of their own party want them to be. Screw the cons. I'm about the positives factors affirming ideas I take credit for, as far as all the cons I have two words for you, pish and tosh.

If the campaign for the presidency is to be a 18-24 month affair as it seems to be now, steps should be taken to make as many of those months moments of revelation rather than obfuscation. Debates between the parties would be revelatory, debates within the parties are too often obfuscatory.

But, all this aside, another notion I remember suggesting (or at least thinking, maybe I never typed it out before) was that it would be far more instructive if candidates were forced to send their 'policy experts' and 'advisers' out into the internet to have debates with each other. When we pick a President we aren't just picking a single person, we are picking a team, and I want to know as soon as possible what the make up of that team will look like. A Bloggingheads type format would be perfect, with dingalinks, and a relatively unstructured time frame. Would Clinton have beaten Bush in 1992 if we had known it would have been a bunch of dweeby munchkins, a few crusty Carter leftovers, and heavily favoring academic over real world folks? Likewise, in 2000 if folks had known Bush was skipping past his father, and even Reagan to pick folks with experience in the Nixon and Ford years, would Gore have won more than the popular vote (although in this scenario I think he would have had a stable of far lefty policy wonks that would make Hillary look like Ayn Rand, so he probably would have lost resoundingly, even against the Bush/Ford/Nixon team).

Could any of the Republicans get Colin Powell to speak on their behalf? Would Clinton be crazy enough to dust off Albright? Does anyone know who Obama's people are or what his cabinet would look like? Does McCain have any friends (aside from a few in the media)? Would Rudy look past the five boroughs for advisers?

These are all questions that would be far more informative than if some 4th tier candidate manages to get off a sound bite, or if a first tier candidate has a response interrupted by a lightning strike.

But, there's no incentive whatsoever for the presidential hopefuls to submit to such a risky scheme. The money people could turn off the money spigot until the candidates engage each other and the issues more directly, but that won't happen, folks are eager to throw money at the campaigns, either cause they're true believers, or cause they hope a scratched back has a memory and where there's some quids there might also be some pros hanging out with some quos. Too bad the multiple 'expert's roundtables' idea will never take off, it would be magnificent, and lead to better governance, but so would terminal limits, and those aren't likely to ever be imposed.

So many ideas, so few listening, oh well . . .

UPDATE:

Woohoo! Hello Althouse readers. I always like it when a popular site turns its attention towards my immodest little blog. Feel free to read other posts, they won't bite, some of them might even be interesting . . .

The Debates I'd Like to See

Fox News did an as good as job as possible with the 10 person circus style debate format they were saddled with. MSNBC's debates were a travesty in comparison.

But the format itself is a dead format and should be abandoned.

Here's the debate format I'd like to see.

Acknowledge that the way the system works now, there are a first tier and second tier of candidates. That's the reality, and by letting everyone who can get there name on a ballot to participate, you only make it harder for voters to see the differences between the candidates that might actually have a chance to be running the country one day.

Another thing worth changing would be to combine the Democrats and Republicans together. These debates are a conversation, and that conversation should offer both sides, not just one or the other, the earlier both major parties actively engage the other, the better it would be for both party's electorate to determine which candidate is best capable of offering a strong challenge in the only poll that matters, the one on the 2nd Tuesday in November of an election year.

So here's the format, invite four candidates from each party to bi-weekly debates. If logistics makes meeting in the same town impossible, there's this thing called teleconferencing, and I hear you can do pretty amazing things with it.

Have each candidate be the "host" for ten minutes at a time, asking questions to the four opposing party candidates. Have a moderator ensure that they don't use their time to ask 9 minute questions full of their own campaign talking points, but instead reward candidates for engaging the other side directly. If Sen. Clinton is a legitimate potential leader for this nation, she ought to be able to ask questions, and get asked questions, directly from Mayor Giuliani or Sen. McCain, or Gov. Romney. Likewise, a former prosecutor like Giuliani would have fun going after Clinton, or Sen. Obama, or Sen. Edwards on specific issues of interest to him and the nation.

If a candidate like Romney wanted to spend his time getting the Dems to bicker amongst themselves, he could, or he could directly challenge them to explain how their choices would be better for the country. Likewise Obama could use his time as "host" to offer a quick take on his views and challenge any of the leading Republicans to offer better.

By forcing the two sides together as early as possible, that would change the tone of these debates from monologue to dialogue. It would be up to each candidate to decide whether that dialogue should be shrill, informative, cooperative, or combative. This would give the primary voters real information on how these folks would perform come general election time, and it would generate far more interest amongst that big group of independents who sit these things out till the last minute usually.

The current format favors agreement over conflict (except when it comes to the fringe candidates like Paul, Gravel or Kucinich), and that's boring. My suggestion favors engagement while at least offering the possibility that a touch of substance might seep to the surface.

Also, by rotating in a different 4th from each party, you'd give the possibility that somebody currently on the outside like Gov. Richardson or Gov. Huckabee could make a big enough impression to build up a more solid base. Right now there's just too much noise and too little time to do so. Also, having those two changing seats in the debate would mark a difference and add some needed unpredictability to these proceedings.

Bi-weekly would be a burden on the candidates, but then these folks expect to be president one day, so it's not too much to ask if they want all that power. The more often they're exposed to situations they don't control fully control the better. We need to see how these folks operate under pressure, and my format suggestion would add a deal of pressure and force them to apply some intellectual rigor to their own positions and their understanding of their opponents'.

But neither party would ever agree to this, even though this could be a benefit to both given that the candidates who emerged from this process would be razor sharp and battle tested rather than some sad sack standard bearer who gets a shot at the presidency simply cause it was their turn.

Sen. Edwards Is A Vapid, Preening, Pretty-Boy (with Great Hair), Who Is Skipping the Debate Due to a Lack of Ideas . . .,

. . . but he's using Fox News participation in said debate as an excuse.

If all the other candidates show up, how is his 'standing up' against Fox News really going to accomplish anything?

And why are folks worrying about this debate crap in early March, anyway?

I say debates shouldn't be between candidates. Instead, send your policy wonks to have a 'wonk off'. Have seperate 'wonk offs' for each policy area. An added bonus is that this 'wonk off' would expose which 'wonkers' a candidate would most likely nominate for key cabinet position.

I'd prefer seeing a bunch of 'wonkers' discussing real policy issues rather than the 'wankers' (aka candidates), talk about stuff that they barely understand and only are able to speak about because of cram sessions with their team of 'wonks'. Plus if an especially 'wonky' candidate decided to go it alone and show up to all of the events as his or her own 'expert', I think that would be excellent information for folks to form an opinion about said candidate (both positively and negatively).

Also, by demanding that a news service Edwards deems biased against 'progressives' stay away from hosting a Democratic Party debate, isn't he tacitly admiting that most of the other news outlets are biased towards 'progressives'?

(hat tip Drudge)