This is a flawed analysis:
Televised debates have had an outsize impact on this year’s Republican presidential race. But the demands of the debating schedule — Saturday’s event in South Carolina was the eleventh major clash — is taking its toll on the candidates, who find themselves constantly preparing for primetime.
The frequency of the debates cuts back on the time available for retail politicking in Iowa and other early-voting states. Even seasoned campaign veterans are now beginning to ask: How many debates are too many?
“Debates are good, but we’re reaching overload,” Ed Rollins told The Hill. Rollins, who was the campaign manager for Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) before stepping down in September, added that under the current schedule “there are going to be 20-plus debates in this primary process. That is way too many.”
Political professionals note that debates — the preparation, the logistics, the debate itself and the post-event ‘spinning‘ — take up an enormous amount of time. It is plausible that some of that time could be better spent building up the grassroots in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The problem for the Republican candidates isn’t that they could be better spending the time elsewhere, the problem is that these people are disgusting, and the more time out of the micromanaged shell of a campaign, people see how repugnant and repelling they all are. There is a reason the biggest beneficiary of the ridiculous debate schedule has been President Obama– the more these sociopaths talk, the more America, including Republicans, hate them.
Palin’s staff in 2008 knew this- that is why they hid her.
John Cole
No, I can’t sleep.
Calouste
Preparing? Not that I have noticed.
Most commentors on this blog would have made a better impression spewing out the endless stream of talking points than the actual candidates, even if called in at 5 minutes notice.
Btw, building up the grassroots in New Hampshire is irrelevant, Romney is going to win that anyway. Iowa is where the real battle is.
MikeJ
@Calouste:
Romney is expected to win since he’s been in NH for somewhere between five and twelve years hiring precinct captains and doing grass root stuff. Still no guarantee they’ll go for him.
jl
@John Cole:
Don’t worry, John Cole, that nice English lady will remit to you the 2 million pounds as soon as possible. There are intricacies, and that is why she needed your bank account information to speed the transaction. Remember that utmost discretion is vital, so don’t get nervous.
Roger Moore
Maybe if they actually knew the issues, they wouldn’t have to spend a bunch of time preparing for the debates, and if they performed decently they wouldn’t have to spend a bunch of time spinning their performances. But that would display a commitment to good government that’s completely out of place in today’s Republican party.
Viva BrisVegas
@John Cole:
Neither can I, but then it’s 5:15pm here and hot as buggery.
Yutsano
@Calouste:
Willard has to win Iowa. He has a much harder path to victory without Iowa in his pocket. And last I checked he’s not exactly wowing them there. Next problem is Florida (he has zero chance in SC) and he needs that too. If Mittens essentially doesn’t get three of the four early contests it’s a total free-for-all.
Amir Khalid
The more these Republican candidates debate, the less any of them looks like a President. And the more repellent the people who would vote for them seem. I can’t picture a decent American wanting to vote alongside someone who would boo an American soldier.
I have to wonder, did the Democratic party have the idea to arrange this many debates for them?
jl
Regarding the GOP debates, I said last night that I thought they were aping the great BHO/HRC debates in order to energize their base. (mild snark with the ‘great’, but they were Lincoln/Douglas stuff compared to the GOP clown show).
But after I saw the flood gates open to barf out the deluge of hacks on the news talkies today, looks like the plan was also to get a lot of free media for holding these ‘news events’.
That won’t work either. They are either crazy loons, or calculating operators, or seriously deluded and out of step with the country (Paul, and Huntsman’s Ryanmania).
I am confident that the more people see and hear, the less they will like. Let the crazy train roll.
Except the last two debates were so predictable and boring, not sure I will bother to watch another one.
amk
But wait, weren’t that crazy woman and that old coot crying that they were not given enough ‘debate’ time ?
Calouste
@Yutsano:
Yep.
Problem for Romney is that if one of the non-Romneys wins by a siginificant margin in Iowa, say 7-8% or more, the non-Romney vote will line up behind that candidate, that candidate will then win South Carolina and take that momentum to Florida, by which time some of the non-Romneys will have dropped out.
The only candidates I can see Romney picking up votes from are Huntsman, who is polling at 1%, and Paul, who’s not going to drop out early.
amk
@Yutsano: Nothing is sure this time. Remember it’s no more winnah takes it all in the rethugs’ primary this time around.
Even with that winnah takes it all of 2008, that terrible saxophonist minister of a govnor was dogging that the terribly angry pow dood till the end.
gene108
You know what’s stupid? The fact homework is now done you your computer.
You know what else is on your computer? The internet…
In the old days, when I was a kid, you actually had to the leave the room or turn on the T.V. or somehow step away from the type writer, in order to slack off on getting a paper written.
Now, I just open a browser on the same machine I’m supposed to writing my mid-term paper for a management class and catch up with Balloon-Juice.
And we call this progress…
Hill Dweller
Bachmann was on national TV this morning claiming Obama was desecrating the war dead by bringing the troops home from Iraq. Who does she and her fellow imbeciles in arms running that freak show of a campaign think will connect with that crazy shit?
Calouste
@amk:
I don’t think it matter that much whether the early primaries are winner-takes-all (some of the later one still are IIRC). It’s all going to be about momentum and media coverage.
Btw, Huckabee play the bass. His pre-predecessor plays the saxophone.
goblue72
Its Willard at the end of the day. The rest is just show. Willard is going to wind up the GOP nominee the same way McCain became the nominee even though he was despised by the hard right loons that make up the GOP rank-and-file – he’s going to pick up some delegates here and there, and then win the big states that Republicans aren’t going to win in the general election – California, New York, Illinois, etc. I’d also expect him to win Pennsylvania. Probably Michigan too. The kind of places that vote Democrat in the general and in Republican primaries generally don’t go all-out lunatic. And he’ll wind up a GOP nominee unable to satisfy the lunatic base and completely unable to go head to head with Obama over the long hall.
Calouste
@Hill Dweller:
Does Bachmann still have a campaign team? Note that the person quoted in Cole’s post is Bachmann ex-campaign manager.
jl
@gene108:
“I’m supposed to writing my mid-term paper for a management class”
I say, since your comment indicates some point of no return is approaching, go with it. BJ might make an interesting management case study. The time Cole’s mom got tired of commenters complaining and ordered (I think that is the right word) him to fix the blog might have some management lessons in there someplace.
Ha ha, that was a joke. You damn kids today have no discipline. Get off this blog now and do your studies, you young whippersnapper. When I was your age I had to walk through the snow barefoot to school, uphill both ways. Damn gummit.
Redshift
@Hill Dweller: Yeah, I hope the eventual nominee gets asked whether he thinks bringing the troops home was a good idea, but I doubt we’ll be that lucky. It’ll be old news by then.
I bet “who lost Iraq” goes onto the endless wingnut repeat list, though.
Calouste
@goblue72:
1) In 2008 the vote was split between McCain, Romney and Huckabee, who had all different constituencies. This year the vote is going to be split between two constituencies only, Romney and non-Romney.
2) Primary delegates are not allocated in the same way as the electoral college. States with Republican Representatives, Senators etc get more delegates. Last time around for example, Illinois had less delegates than Georgia.
Martin
Well, in 2008, the Dems had more debates by this point.
But the value of the debates is in their reach, and in what they deliver. I’d argue that in 2008 (2007 actually), there was more value in the debates because the audience was looking for at least some policy substance. By now, we had clear (if minor) distinctions between Clinton’s and Obama’s health care approaches, and the importance of health care reform to the electorate.
There’s nothing like that on the right – no substantive policy issues other than how ginormous the tax cuts or how big a nuke to drop on Iran.
I’m ruminating over a quote: “The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive.” I think that’s probably fairly right. A lot of what the left supports is pretty conservative, and a lot of what the right proposes is pretty radical. But in virtually all respects, the left is constructive where the right is destructive.
If destruction is what you want, or what you want to deliver, debates are pretty pointless because all you’re really doing is arguing over who is willing to show up with the bigger crowbar.
Hill Dweller
@Redshift: I wouldn’t count on the careerists in the media to do any of the heavy lifting.
On Veterans Day, Romney said he wanted to privatize the VA, which should be a huge deal in the press, but the moderators didn’t even bring it up during the debate.
gene108
@jl:
I wish I was a young whipper snapper and not an old fart, because staying up all night wouldn’t have the same adverse effects on me as it no doubt will.
I’ve found in my dotage, I’ve had enough time to become good at something. Unfortunately, I chose procrastination.
At least my mom was right, I had to be good at something that made me special. I bet she didn’t think it wold be procrastination.
Amir Khalid
@Calouste:
That’s what I said here some days ago: look at the campaign organizations! Who’s got the crew best equipped to fight this to the convention? That’s still the candidate to put your bets on. That’s what the campaign coverage needs to keep its eye on. All the debates ate revealing is that the Republican candidates suck more or less equally.
Whatever Herman Cain does over the next couple of months, he’s got Mark freaking Block in charge; I’m still expecting Cain to vanish like a bad dream once primary season starts. I suspect Michele Bachmann has still to replace Ed Rollins, if the media can’t find his successor to get quotes from. I expect better, campaign org-wise, of Romney and Perry, but that remains to be seen. We have heard nothing about the campaign orgs of the remaining candidates.
jl
@Hill Dweller: @Redshift:
Bush lost Irag, the day he decided to invade. But to say so would show disrespect.
The media megaphone does concern me. The hacks on radio and TV cannot worry their pretty little heads about policy issues like the VA, unless they decide to throw it into their bucket of government programs for the lesser people that must be cut because of ‘hard choices’.
But from what I have heard so far, the hacks are in Starsearch mode, and babble nonsense. I cannot believe anyone listens to them. I had to turn them off after a few minutes earlier today.
jl
@gene108:
Everyone is special and unique in how they procrastinate. You just have to figure out how to make a buck out of it. That’s the hard part.
I think some commenter here (forget who) had a good Robert Benchley quote to the effect that you can do an infinite amount of work, if you are supposed to be doing something else.
RandyH
If these folks had any core beliefs whatsoever, they would not need to prepare AT ALL for the so-called “debates.” It would just be a matter of answering questions about what you believe and how you see the world. Period.
JR
Wild idea here, but hear me out:
DON’T INVITE EVERY CANDIDATE TO EVERY DEBATE.
At this point, there are still more debates to come than have already been held. We’re not even halfway home!
So why waste everyone’s time with allowing just a few minutes (or, if you believe the campaigns’ claims, a few seconds) per candidate to speak on the issues? Why not, instead, divide up the field and start conducting debates in small groups?
The Gingrich-Cain “debate” was horrid to inflict upon the public, sure, but having a few more candidates should create a less congenial atmosphere and provoke more detailed sniping. A four- or five-candidate debate might be watchable, and about more than just how unbelievably stupid Rick Perry can be. Give moderators fewer candidates to study in greater detail, and we’ll see if cracks can be found within the candidates and between the campaigns. We could even make brackets. Let’s get some out-of-conference rivalries started here.
I don’t think it will necessarily improve the quality of the candidates’ rhetoric–the GOP might like to pretend it’s a big tent, but these folks are more ideologically homogenous than the editorial board of a North Korean newspaper–but it will at least let those on the dais have a couple of minutes to lay their visions out and look ridiculous doing so.
As long as Buddy, Gary and Ron are still in the pool, any random selection process should at least provide some variety of opinion. That works for me.
Excluding low-performing candidates from more debates is also reasonable enough. Those campaigns will complain that excluding them stifles their message, at which point we can remind them how many opportunities to debate they’ve already had, and inform them that their messages just ain’t selling this season. That works for me: if we exclude people polling under 5% we’d still have debates with Romney, Cain, Gingrich, Paul, Perry, and sometimes Bachmann. That’s still a little crowded, but not as painful as the current state of affairs. If these candidates want to earn their place in history, maybe they should start by earning their place on the stage (doesn’t that sound like a nice, Republican ethic?).
I think the field might ultimately embrace the idea. Romney will stay quiet until people’s views about changing the debate formula are clearer, at which point he’ll loudly claim to be on the more popular side with all his heart. Perry will take any potential rescue that could save him from more debates without him having to drop out entirely (hope springs eternal). Gingrich will be torn between the potential of more foes to look smarter than (in his own mind, at least) and the chance to hear himself talk more while giving longer responses, but I think he’ll choose fairer winds over larger battlefields, and his rising poll numbers will cause him to pull along the rest of the top bracket. Everyone polling lower than 5% will be ignored in any case.
Amir Khalid
@JR:
This is a good idea, but I do see a problem. A candidate excluded for one evening might howl: “You guys are not giving me a chance! This is NOT FAIR! WAAAH!elebenty! Michele Bachmann did just this after Saturday, because she thought she’d been shortchanged on questions.
El Cid
__
I am nervous that this sort of extreme partisan talk is going to discourage the GOP base from continuing their support of this website.
Mark S.
I could understand this complaint if there were only two or three people running, but with all of these candidates, these guys are talking for 5-15 minutes. Any candidate reasonably well-versed on the issues . . .
Oh, that’s the problem.
gnomedad
@JR:
You want to fix the GOP fratricide why, exactly?
imonlylurking
So they can’t handle a rigorous debate schedule but they think they can handle being president?
rikryah
the GOP field is full of assclowns, and the more you see them, the more evident it is.
chopper
@goblue72:
shrug. mittens has two problems walnuts didn’t have. while mccain didn’t excite the religious wackos, he still had solid conservative credentials. mittens does not. even despite all the time taken away by debates, there’s a lot of ground game in winning the nomination and while mitt has the money the attack ads and ratfuckery out of the rest of the candidates will basically write itself.
he just has too much history as a ‘moderate’ and too much shit on record.
the second problem is that the primary schedule has changed. super tuesday is now regular tuesday, and the big states like IL, CA and NY which bring in the moderate GOP votes are way late in the game. the system is rigged more in the favor of the dinosaur candidates than it used to be.
4jkb4ia
Look, John– (shakes head hopelessly)
I would submit that it has been Newt because he gets to get in front of a crowd and do his thing without any organization or any money.
And I am not sure you can say that on the basis of one poll. Obama was leading Romney in the ABC/WaPo poll by one point last week, and against the crazier people he has always done much better than that. I haven’t seen any polling where Cain was within five points of Obama. These debates are not going to be what destroys Romney until you get the people who are just not going to get the nomination due to being too crazy/stupid off the stage. Romney can sit back and look presidential and not crazy or stupid. This is why Team Plouffe is collecting possible attacks on Romney. For everyone else the attacks have written themselves.
Here’s one post devoted to the idea that Latinos in particular may be turned off by the crazy but stay home.
And please give me credit for not explaining disembodied anus. I wrote two paragraphs, took a deep breath, and said, “Let John write it.”
(The thing is, John, after you see how Cindy Sheehan imploded, the original Cole post was not that damned bad. But when you wrote it she was a hero.)
4jkb4ia
Look here, RCP has Obama ahead by 2 in the first poll where he was run against Cain, which was Gallup. Then two later polls had him ahead by 5.
LosGatosCA
I think smoking up the grass roots would be more productive as well as more enjoyable.
LosGatosCA
How about smoking and singing?
Let’s put Michelle Bachmann in a late night cozy dinner setting with Herman Cain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVVpDfxhcOo
Frankensteinbeck
I love this Politico article. ‘Obama wildly outscores every single GOP candidate, but at least he’s tied with a nonexistent imaginary candidate. We can totally beat him if we focus on jobs, as long as we don’t mention that the polls show the public thinks he’s still better about jobs than we are!’
Deb T
I read an article last week (sorry, don’t know who wrote it–read too many things. It might have been in Mother Jones?), that said debates were our last access to unscripted candidates. True they have talking points and scripts, but there’s always the chance for something real to show through whether as obvious as Perry’s brain freeze or Mitt’s condescending sneer. Where else do we get to see these guys on their own. Once the debates are gone, so is our access to the real men and women running for office.
RalfW
The other good thing about this is when it comes time for Obama to debate whoever emerges from the ooze-pit, it’s gonna be pretty hard for the GOP to say “well, we only want one debate. Debates aren’t how the American people want to get to know the differences between the candidates” (or whatever lame-ass excuses they’ll offer).
If debates are not “what the voters want” then why the hell did the GOP subject us to 9,473 of them?
And you know they all know that Obama will run away with this thing. Romney is the only one who can really debate Obama.
All the rest save Newtie are hopeless in this format. Gingrich can be forceful, but he’s forceful like a really odious series of farts. Voters will smell him, they’ll be repelled by the sulfurous hang-time of his vapors, should the very base GOP base be insane enough to nominate that particular not-Romney.
Gex
@Deb T: Which marketing machine should run America? Which ever one picks the prettiest, tallest, craziest conservative for their public image. The way the founders intended.
Paul in KY
@gene108: I coulda been a great procrastinator, but I just never got around to applying myself…
bob h
Yes, the opinion of President Obama and the frequency and inanity of the Republican debates are directly correlated.
Palli
Mantatory study time would have been a better “tool” for that group of candidates-even if they chose their right-wing lecturers. A study group! You’d think the first 5 debates would have been enough practice.
Caz
Seriously, are you joking? Have you been watching Obama’s approval rating? It’s like you check in on reality and then post the exact opposite of reality. Either you’re very dumb or very misinformed. Perhaps a combination of both. Your analysis is complete opposite of reality. How do you end up with this kind of view of what’s happenining in the real world? It’s baffling, but entertaining. No wonder there’s no real debate on this site – it’s just an echo chamber of rhetoric. I bet you take all these “you’re right again!” comments as some genuine sample of how Americans feel too. Please don’t vote, useful idiot.
Ian
The quantity of GOP debates is a deliberate ploy to kill Democratic volunteers who engage in drinking games.