Growing Calls Among Democrats To Cancel The Trump-Biden Presidential Debates

Elizabeth Drew, New York Times: Let’s Scrap the Presidential Debates

They’ve become unrevealing quip contests.

Nervous managers of the scheduled 2020 presidential debates are shuffling the logistics and locations to deal with the threat of the coronavirus. But here’s a better idea: Scrap them altogether. And not for health reasons.

The debates have never made sense as a test for presidential leadership. In fact, one could argue that they reward precisely the opposite of what we want in a president. When we were serious about the presidency, we wanted intelligence, thoughtfulness, knowledge, empathy and, to be sure, likability. It should also go without saying, dignity.

Yet the debates play an outsize role in campaigns and weigh more heavily on the verdict than their true value deserves.

Perhaps the most substantive televised debate of all was the first one, between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, which Nixon was considered to have won on substance on the radio, while the cooler and more appealing Kennedy won on television. Since these weren’t true debates, the concept of “winning” one of these odd encounters was always amorphous. (To be sure, many questions by panels of journalists were designed less to stimulate debate than to challenge one of the candidates.)

Over time, the debates came to resemble professional wrestling matches, and more substantive debates were widely panned in the press. Points went to snappy comebacks and one-liners. Witty remarks drew laughs from the audience and got repeated for days and remembered for years.

Some of them have been less than hilarious, but they did the job of dominating reaction to a debate. Whatever substance existed was largely ignored. In 1980, when Ronald Reagan debated the incumbent Jimmy Carter, Carter made a serious point about Reagan’s position on Medicare, and Reagan’s riposte, “There you go again,” a non-answer if ever there was one, brought down the house and that was that.

In the first 1984 debate, Reagan, seeking re-election and at 73, the oldest person to be nominated for the presidency, seemed tired and tended to wander off mentally at times. His lackluster performance caused panic among his staff. Democratic supporters of former Vice President Walter Mondale saw an opening.

But another debate soon followed. Thoroughly prepared, Reagan got off the crack, “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

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Update #1: Joe Biden should not debate President Trump, Clinton’s ex-WH spokesman says (FOX News)
Update #2: Democrats Urging Biden Not to Debate Trump (PJ Media)

WNU Editor: I always make a point of listening to what leaders and future leaders say and how they say it to better understand their philosophy/agenda/and character. I especially enjoy moments when these leaders are unscripted and unguarded when they make remarks or answering a question. But this rule cannot be applied right now to former Vice-President Biden. The word "confused" comes to my mind when he has engaged with an audience after 20 minutes. Take any of his recent encounters with the media or audience, and listen to the whole thing. After that, listen and watch his performance with Paul Ryan in their 2012 VP debate (link here). You see two completely different men, and it is getting worse for the former Vice President. I am sure many Democrats know what I already know. Hence the growing calls to make sure that these debates do not happen.