Despite numerous requests for more debates from Hillary Clinton’s rivals, Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz insisted there would be no changes.
Wasserman Schultz said that the Democrats would not be holding any more debates during the primary campaign. She claimed that the candidates need more time for “retail politics” and that debates take up too much time and are prohibitively costly.
The DNC chair also shut the door on giving candidates the opportunity to participate in non-sanctioned debated or other debate-like forums, stating that having too many debates makes the entire process “spiral out of control.” Wasserman-Shultz has been accused of favoring Clinton in the primary process. The front-runner would benefit from a lack of debates, because it would deprive opponents the chance of achieving the name recognition she already has and limit the number of questions about her email scandal.
“We’re not changing the process. We’re having six debates,” Wasserman-Schultz told reporters at a breakfast in Washington, D.C., Thursday morning. “The candidates will be uninvited from subsequent debates if they accept an invitation to anything outside of the six sanctioned debates.”
DNC vice-chairs Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Ryback petitioned against the DNC’s limited debate schedule in a Facebook post Wednesday night, claiming that the party had made a “mistake” that excludes people from the political process.
Democratic candidates Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders have also both rallied against the DNC’s debate schedule, stating that the limited number of debates benefits Clinton. In addition to limited the number of debates, the DNC also imposed an “exclusivity clause,” stating that any Democratic candidate who participated in a non-sanctioned debate would not be allowed to participate in any other DNC debates.
O’Malley’s lawyer challenged the legality of the party’s “exclusivity clause” and his campaign is holding a protest outside the DNC headquarters before the Sept. 16 Republican debate.
“The purpose of [the exclusivity clause] is so we can make sure the party’s debate process doesn’t get out of control,” Wasserman Schultz said. “The wide variety of opinion that I’ve gotten is that if you don’t have the national party put a reasonable number and insist that that number is adhered to, it starts to spiral out of control.”
The DNC chair argued that the Republicans “are doing the same thing” as the Democrats by holding nine debates for 17 candidates, and that the DNC’s number of debates is “proportionate” and fair, despite the many claims otherwise.
O’Malley, who currently polls at 2 percent nationally, has been the most vocal on this issue, spending the entirety of his speech at the DNC summer meeting in Minneapolis railing against the debate rules. Sanders, who is polling at 23 percent, has also joined the chorus, claiming that if Clinton were the candidate asking the DNC for more debates, than the DNC would make it happen.
“There are candidates that are gaining steam on their own,” she argued, slighting O’Malley, with whom she had a tense exchange at the DNC meeting. “Look at the crowds that Bernie Sanders is drawing. We’ve not had any debates yet and Bernie Sanders has found a way to catch fire with our base.”
