Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and the special committee he appointed to establish a schedule of debates for the would-be GOP nominee for the 2012 presidential race have done a great service for Republican Party voters, for the candidates, and for the country as a whole with Friday’s announcement of a set of RNC-sponsored debates beginning in August and ending in February. By smashing the old mainstream media monopoly over the debate structure, the new proposal not only brings structure to the primary season but also the promise of serious discussion of issues of deep importance to the conservative electorate tired to death of the agenda journalism of the Obama-loving MSM.
The candidates should not only quickly announce their intention to accept the RNC’s proposal, they ought to couple that announcement with a declaration that these debates will be the only ones they agree to, thus liberating themselves and the public from too much talk manipulated by MSMers still in the thrall of the old agenda journalism of the Beltway-Manhattan media elite.
The RNC proposes to select the times, places, and participants, and this could yield a renaissance in campaign coverage. Imagine one or two debates on foreign affairs, moderated by a senior statesman and featuring questions from public intellectuals like Charles Krauthammer, Victor Davis Hanson and Liz Cheney.
A debate moderated by the Wall Street Journal’s Paul Gigot and featuring economic historian Amity Shlaes and other writers and reporters knowledgeable about the history of markets and regulatory policy would be valuable.
Or perhaps a forum on the Constitution, courts and judges moderated by Robert Bork and featuring former federal appellate judges Michael McConnell and Michael Luttig? The possibilities for great and informative debates are many and long overdue.
Smashing the MSM monopoly doesn’t mean exiling MSM scribblers and talking heads. There are many fine MSMers who could be asked to participate, from the New York Times’ John Burns to the Los Angeles Times’ Doyle McManus and the Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz, from CNN’s Candy Crowley to Politico’s John Harris and Michael Allen to the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza.
Partisan lefties could be sprinkled throughout, such as the New Republic’s Jonathan Chait or the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, to offer glimpses of how the candidates would respond to the hostile charges of the president’s admirers.
But the emphasis should be on serving the primary electorate by selecting smart questioners who will pose the sort of inquiries that GOP primary voters want answered: How should entitlements be reformed?
How big ought the Navy to be and how would you pay for it? Which portions of Dodd-Frank would you seek to repeal and what would you replace Obamacare with? Do courts have the authority to impose same-sex marriage?
The days of “gotcha” questions and YouTube snowmen, Santa Claus and “who believes in evolution” idiocies should be over, as should the appearance of planted partisans posing queries loaded up with left-wing assumptions.
We can hope for two other innovations in format.
First, give the candidates the time they need to answer, at least two minutes per question and without interruption. While Obama-like digressions shouldn’t be encouraged, it does take two or three minutes to lay out the outlines of a policy.
Second, bar the stage to those candidates who simply cannot win the nomination, even under Iowa-upset circumstances. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania are long-shots, but they have a plausible path to the nomination. Former Rep. Buddy Roemer of Louisiana and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson do not.
If Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., declares, he should be welcomed on to the platform. If Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, asks for another giant chunk of valuable time, the RNC should say no, and put up with the howls from the 1 percent who will scream.
Call this the Kucinich/Keyes rule, and adopt it for the benefit of every voter who cares about who carries the banner in November 2012.
The GOP debates should serve the voters who will be placing their hopes on the nominee, and not the desire for either ratings or headlines that inspire those MSMers who are simply consumed with keeping President Obama afloat.
Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.
