Long-shots in presidential debates deserve as much speaking time as front-runners. And the viewing audience deserves more chance to hear them.
A little history is in order. There was a time when debates were structured with very little actual interaction between candidates, and all candidates had almost exactly equal time to make their points. The nearly rigorous enforcement of equal time made the proceedings fairer, but the lack of free-flowing exchanges made things look rather stilted. Audiences snoozed.
A few presidential cycles ago, debate sponsors loosened up. Moderators were allowed to encourage verbal exchanges (within reason) and to follow up lines of inquiry that seemed to have more juice. Those changes made for better viewing. Unfortunately, they also reinforced already existing biases in favor of front-runners and loudmouths.
The media already use their gatekeeper roles to stack the deck in favor of candidates who are favored either by conventional wisdom or by the buzz within the media’s own echo chambers. Early polls, too, which have been proved to far better reflect name ID than actual voter preference, help keep potentially good candidates from gaining media attention. It all becomes a cycle of self-fulfilling assumptions about who does or doesn’t have a chance to favorably impress voters.
Thus, with moderators free to direct specific questions and follow-ups to specific candidates as they see fit, the front-runners or big-media-market candidates get the bulk of the debate time. Thus it was that in the first debate in June, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey enjoyed nearly 11 minutes of speaking time, while Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington state, was allowed only five minutes. The disparity in the second debate was even worse, with former Vice President Joe Biden speaking for 13.6 minutes, but entrepreneur Andrew Yang only three.
This is a massive disservice to viewers. If the candidates have already passed a threshold to qualify for the debates, the viewers should have the chance to let them make their cases. This is about more than simple fairness (although fairness is enough); it’s about giving the public the best chance to make the best choice for leadership of the free world.
In this case, it’s especially important. The most common reflection (and complaint) heard in “middle America” after the first round of Democratic debates was that the field came across as radically left-wing, perhaps ludicrously so. Yet of the three candidates (apart from the obviously well-known Biden) who bucked the leftist trend and at least attempted to make semi-moderate noises (former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, former congressman John Delaney of Maryland, and congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio), none of them was afforded speaking time among the top 10 of the 20 candidates.
The fourth candidate willing to buck the Left on at least one high-profile topic, namely identity politics, was Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. Like Delaney, she spoke for only 6.6 minutes. Each of them represents some 700,000 people, while media darling Pete Buttigieg is mayor of South Bend, Indiana, whose population is only 100,000. Yet, Buttigieg was allowed to speak for 10.5 minutes in his debate.
Moderators shouldn’t let volatile, nearly meaningless early polls, or their own biases, affect who speaks for how long. Maybe there’s a good idea out there, waiting to be explained, from the likes of the accomplished Delaney or the thoughtful Hickenlooper. Maybe Ryan’s paeans to blue-collar America, or Gabbard’s stance on religious liberty, merit more attention.
Sometimes, the public embraces dark-horse candidates. It cannot do so, however, if moderators keep those candidates under wraps.
