After a Debatable Debate, Obama Debates Debating
The Nation — Barack Obama came out of Wednesday night’s ABC “News” debate pretty battered.
Former Clinton White House aide George Stephanopoulos asked the Democratic frontrunner to respond to some of the more ridiculous Republican talking points. Hillary Clinton made another in-kind contribution to the John McCain campaign.
And Obama, himself, seemed tired, agitated and a little off his game.
What to do?
Question the point of debates.
“I’ll be honest with you, we’ve now had 21,” Obama said Thursday evening in North Carolina. “It’s not as if we don’t know how to do these things. I could deliver Sen. Clinton’s lines; she could, I’m sure, deliver mine.”
When a fourth-grade boy told the Illinois senator that he had won a class election at school, Obama asked, “How many debates did you have to have?”
“None,” said the boy.
“None!” Obama exclaimed. “That sounds good!”
Obama did not say he was definitely going to avoid future debates with Clinton. But he indicated that he was inclined to “check my schedule” rather than simply accept more debate invitations.
Obama’s wrong on this one.
Debates aren’t the problem.
Debates moderated by Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson — whose questions in this debate and an earlier one in New Hampshire betrayed a sensibility that seems, dare we say it, elitist — are the problem.
Debates organized by the broadcast and cable networks featuring questions from vapid anchors and randomly-selected “undecided” voters are the problem.
Here’s a suggestion. Sit down before the Indiana primary for a debate about trade policy with United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard moderating and union activists from Gary and Hammond asking questions.
Here’s another: Sit down before the Montana primary with National Farmers Union president Tom Buis moderating and working farmers and folks from towns like Big Sandy asking the questions.
How about going to North Carolina for a debate in the research triangle where all the questions from academics and students are about stem-cells, new technologies and the extent to which the federal government should invest in scholarship?
How about going to Puerto Rico and answering questions from residents of an unincorporated territory of the United States that gets to send delegates to the Democratic and Republican national conventions but not to vote in actual presidential elections about whether the island should be a commonwealth, a state or an independent nation?
Let the networks cover the debates from a platform in the back.
And let cranks like Gibson and Stephanopoulos watch the face-offs on television.
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