Obama: No More Debates before May 6

[Guardsman Bass]

ANDERSON, Ind. – Pining for another Democratic presidential debate?

If so, it’s not going to happen before the Indiana and North Carolina primaries on May 6.

That’s the word from Senator Barack Obama, who said in an interview to be broadcast tomorrow on “Fox News Sunday” that he had no plans of agreeing to another debate in the next 10 days with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. After that, aides say, it remains an open question.

Here is a brief excerpt of the interview with Chris Wallace, which was conducted today during a break in Mr. Obama’s campaign schedule in Indiana.

Mr. Wallace: “Why are you ducking another debate with Senator Clinton?”

Mr. Obama: “I’m not ducking one. We’ve had 21. And so what we’ve said, we’re two weeks, two big states, we want to make sure we’re talking to as many folks possible on the ground taking questions from voters, you know we will -

Mr. Wallace: “No debates between now and Indiana?”

Mr. Obama “We’re not going to have debates between now and Indiana.”

Well, that settles it. Stay tuned for comment from the Clinton campaign.

What does everyone think of this? On one hand, I see where he is coming from; he generally does not do as well in debates as Clinton, and considering the pressure on his campaign after the Pennsylvania loss, I can see why he wouldn't want to risk any fallout from another debates (as well as essentially giving up an entire day of campaigning to prepare for a debate).

But on the other hand, I like debates. They get the candidates outside of an environment which they have under their control where they can't reasonably duck questions, no matter how hostile. [/quote]

[Losonti Tokash]

I'd be fine with hostile questions, as long as they're hostile to both candidates. Lately they haven't been, and seem to be overcompensating for earlier when they were perceived to be nice to Obama.

[Flagg]

There have been 21 Democratic debates. 21. All televised nationally. There need be no more Democratic Primary debates. And politically, all they can do is hurt Obama and help Clinton. Plus, I don't think the party can withstand another disgraceful ABC hit job where the moderators take questions from Sean Hannity and Clinton harps on Obama supporters for being pissed off.

[SirNitram]

There's been 21 debates. And the 21st made it clear to me we're not getting any substance out of any more.

[Guardsman Bass]

There have been 21 Democratic debates. 21. All televised nationally. There need be no more Democratic Primary debates. And politically, all they can do is hurt Obama and help Clinton. Plus, I don't think the party can withstand another disgraceful ABC hit job where the moderators take questions from Sean Hannity and Clinton harps on Obama supporters for being pissed off.

True, but only the past 6 or 7 have been solely between Obama and Clinton, which changes the dynamics quite a bit. Plus, you do still generally get some interesting information out of them when they occur - after the 45 minutes of stupid, ABC actually started asking some good questions.

[Flagg]

There have been 21 Democratic debates. 21. All televised nationally. There need be no more Democratic Primary debates. And politically, all they can do is hurt Obama and help Clinton. Plus, I don't think the party can withstand another disgraceful ABC hit job where the moderators take questions from Sean Hannity and Clinton harps on Obama supporters for being pissed off.

True, but only the past 6 or 7 have been solely between Obama and Clinton, which changes the dynamics quite a bit. Plus, you do still generally get some interesting information out of them when they occur - after the 45 minutes of stupid, ABC actually started asking some good questions.

Yeah, after a solid 45 minutes of tag teaming Obama with Clinton, which hurt him and helped her quite a bit. And that's still 6 or 7 debates between Obama and Clinton. That's alot. Last general election there were a total of 2 between Bush and Kerry. Debates at this point can only hurt him.

[SirNitram]

There have been 21 Democratic debates. 21. All televised nationally. There need be no more Democratic Primary debates. And politically, all they can do is hurt Obama and help Clinton. Plus, I don't think the party can withstand another disgraceful ABC hit job where the moderators take questions from Sean Hannity and Clinton harps on Obama supporters for being pissed off.

True, but only the past 6 or 7 have been solely between Obama and Clinton, which changes the dynamics quite a bit. Plus, you do still generally get some interesting information out of them when they occur - after the 45 minutes of stupid, ABC actually started asking some good questions.

Why do you think a 22nd would be any better?

[Guardsman Bass]

There have been 21 Democratic debates. 21. All televised nationally. There need be no more Democratic Primary debates. And politically, all they can do is hurt Obama and help Clinton. Plus, I don't think the party can withstand another disgraceful ABC hit job where the moderators take questions from Sean Hannity and Clinton harps on Obama supporters for being pissed off.

True, but only the past 6 or 7 have been solely between Obama and Clinton, which changes the dynamics quite a bit. Plus, you do still generally get some interesting information out of them when they occur - after the 45 minutes of stupid, ABC actually started asking some good questions.

Why do you think a 22nd would be any better?

I don't, but like I said, I think you do get something out of each debate, even if it is encompassed in a whole lot of stupid (and the debates vary in quality. I like MSNBC's debates more than CNN's, for example).

As for Obama being hurt by debates, well, I already said that as a reason why he might not want to do them. That's fine; I just find it personally disappointing since I like the debates.

[Covenant]

If they actually had a real debate, I'd be interested. As it stands, the televised gotcha-games are as useful to me as watching them play a game of poker. In both instances there's only so much you can do with a bad hand that's being dealt to you, but at least poker is a game with some degree of fairness to it. Such can't be said of a moderated debate.

A real debate would be a debate in a classic sense, with some actual substance and a chance to call bullshit in a real way backed up by information.

Honestly, anyone who wants more debates now is either a Hillary supporter hoping for more Obama slip-ups or the stupidest undecided voter in the history of mankind.

[Gerald Tarrant]

The televised format is useless for providing anything substantive. That's why the websites of both Senators Clinton and Obama have provided very in depth policy agendas. Clinton's and Obama's. A written debate where they (or their policy advisers) write about the relative merits of their respective policies would be worth something. If they got a disinterested moderator (maybe a 'furiner) to arbitrate evidentiary disputes you might actually get something worth reading (albeit a trifle long and wonkish).

[Darth Wong]

Obama might as well come out and say that the ABC debate, moderated by a former Clinton staffer, is pretty much proof that the media is out to get him, and that there's no reason to let Clinton stage-manage any more debates for her own benefit by stacking them with her supporters.

[Pablo Sanchez]

This debate bullshit comes down to three points, in my opinion:

1) She wants to get her face on TV but simply doesn't have the cash to play against Obama. He is beating her senseless in the money race and I'm pretty sure she blew most of what she had stocked up on the Pennsylvania market. A debate gets her on TV for free.
2) It's got to be obvious to Clinton that debates are great for her now. The media has long been desperate to get a "Gotcha" against Obama, and since they couldn't find one they've decided to just start making shit up, since if they pretend hard enough, any line of bullshit is a gotcha. They're making up for lost time. The last debate was stone-cold terrible and a big-time giveaway to Clinton, and likely so will the next one. Obama is suffering from "media front runner" syndrome; it makes a better story if the guy in front gets beaten down, so goddamnit, you journo-churls get out there and ask him about Jeremiah Wright until you're blue in the face!
3) Clinton doesn't actually have anything substantive to hit Obama with, so she concentrates on total bullshit. A while ago she was saying she had more experience, and when people didn't cotton to that, she started saying she was more electable. She might be angling to change that again, to a "Obama is scared to debate me" offensive.

[Darth Wong]

I honestly can't believe how much I loathe Hillary Clinton at this point. At the start of this seemingly interminable campaign, I just thought she wasn't a particularly good candidate. Now I think she's a walking, talking symbol of everything that's wrong with American politics.

[Guardsman Bass]

The televised format is useless for providing anything substantive. That's why the websites of both Senators Clinton and Obama have provided very in depth policy agendas. Clinton's and Obama's. A written debate where they (or their policy advisers) write about the relative merits of their respective policies would be worth something. If they got a disinterested moderator (maybe a 'furiner) to arbitrate evidentiary disputes you might actually get something worth reading (albeit a trifle long and wonkish).

That would be good - in fact, it'd almost be a kind of throwback to the debates 150 years ago (or back in post-Revolutionary America time) when newspapers still drew their profits primarily from subscriptions rather than advertising (meaning they could afford to be eloquent, even if the paper itself was very partisan).

I thought Clinton's campaign had an interesting idea, which was to have a "back and forth" - basically, for 90 minutes, each candidate gets two minutes. Then the other candidate gets two minutes. Then the other candidate gets two minutes, and so on and so forth. I think five minutes might be more appropriate, but I like the idea. Obviously, it opens up the possiblity of (probably) Clinton trying to "gotcha" Obama and make him verbally stumble, but I still think it could be interesting - it would be a kind of free-flow discussion.

[Fire Fly]

1. What would the 22nd debate reveal that the other 21 debates have not revealed already? For those who are following the primary election, we already have a good idea of where the candidates stand on.

2. Clinton is being suffocated financially and she wants free air time; I don't see why she deserves it.

3. The previous 21 debates have essentially sucked up all policy ideas; any future debates will have a disproportionate amount of bullshit non-issues. There should be no debate unless both sides and the moderators agree to cut the bullshit out.

4. If there's anymore debates, Bill Moyers ought to moderate.

If ABC's debate is any indicator of future debates to come between Clinton and Obama, forget it. You'll find more policy worthy stuff from just reading the respective candidate's websites.

[Ubiquitous]

2. Clinton is being suffocated financially and she wants free air time; I don't see why she deserves it.

Hmm. After watching the disgraceful last debate, I was going to say that any more debates would be a very bad idea. However, this raises an interesting point of democracy in action: if one candidate's campaign is vastly poorer than the other candidates, but their support is pretty much level [give or take], then shouldn't we be demanding that the two are given equal air time in the run up to the remaining primaries in these debates? As long as they are moderated properly, I don't see what the problem would be.

[Brain_Caster]

You know what I'd like to see? A written debate between Clinton and Obama.

[Ubiquitous]

You know what I'd like to see? A written debate between Clinton and Obama.

That would be awesome, however there would be no way to prove that they actually wrote their answers unless we locked them both in a room whilst they did it, which is obviously unrealistic.

[KlavoHunter]

And imagine the spelling mistakes we would get to see!

[Covenant]

You know what I'd like to see? A written debate between Clinton and Obama.

That would be awesome, however there would be no way to prove that they actually wrote their answers unless we locked them both in a room whilst they did it, which is obviously unrealistic.

Even if someone else wrote it, it wouldn't matter--since now they've put their positions on record and the political fallout for being caught having your own debate ghostwritten would be too big to make such schenanigans overtly obvious. A written debate is the best way to do it, since it's right there in black and white rather than off in some sound clip vault somewhere. Since this is the new generation, have each politician read their debate piece to the camera so they can put the inflection where they think it should be, so there's less chance of misinterpertation and a further reason not to come back and say later "Oh, well, I actually didn't write that portion and was unaware if was in there," or whatever.

And then we can go through and look at what that means, and watch the fray. It makes a lot more sense. It's even a lot easier, since now with youtube everywhere you can transmit these kinds of boring media much easier. No need to force the networks to play it, you can just pump it out there yourself and drop a paltry million or two onto Youtube to plaster it with advertisements that let everyone know you're going to do that.

[Patrick Degan]

I honestly can't believe how much I loathe Hillary Clinton at this point. At the start of this seemingly interminable campaign, I just thought she wasn't a particularly good candidate. Now I think she's a walking, talking symbol of everything that's wrong with American politics.

I am not at the point of loathing the woman as yet, but see myself coming to it.

[Rye]

I honestly can't believe how much I loathe Hillary Clinton at this point. At the start of this seemingly interminable campaign, I just thought she wasn't a particularly good candidate. Now I think she's a walking, talking symbol of everything that's wrong with American politics.

I went through that and a further bout of cynicism regarding the American voting population and to a lesser extent the media (I knew the media was full of cunts before this, naturally). From the start it's been obvious that Obama was the better candidate, but at the same time, Hillary's been devolving more and more into a "do anything to win" piece of shit.

Now, that sort of thing is to be expected, but you would've thought that would've turned the supposedly liberal "democrat" public off her, I mean, why would they want a leader like that? Do they think someone who can't handle finances and who chooses to fight dirtily against a guy that handles himself generally decently is to be desired? I mean, I'm cynical, but aside from a few people here and there, the democratic party's not gone "Jesus, Hil, stfu" nor tried to correct any media impressions that democrats at large approve of her methods enough to stay silent on them.

I used to think that about 60% of americans were a bit retarded and morally suspect (creationist republicans etc) but now it's pretty clear that Hillary's supporters are their ideological kindred, without a decent bone in their slimy bodies. As it is, I doubt Obama's going to get the nomination (the desire to stick with the safety of corrupt, mud-slinging arseholes has overpowered the desire to really care about votes in the past, after all), but I guess America has to learn the hard way that their status quo isn't actually desirable.

I suppose this way, if Hil or McCain get in and ruin things up a bit more, we'll at least be spared the "you all thought Obama was the messiah yet everything's gone shitter! Liberalism away from the status quo is bad! He can't blame everything on George Bush forever, he hsould take responsibility for this huge mess he's not alleviated!" gloating that would ensue from the talking heads and butthurt republicans and hillocrats. It sucks that that's the only silver lining I can see in this bukkake of corruption and farce.

[Lonestar]

You know what we need?

Some Lincoln-Douglas style debates, with both Candidates standing out in the sun for 8hrs after their sound bites have run out.

Seriously, we had them in high school

[Pablo Sanchez]

However, this raises an interesting point of democracy in action: if one candidate's campaign is vastly poorer than the other candidates, but their support is pretty much level [give or take], then shouldn't we be demanding that the two are given equal air time in the run up to the remaining primaries in these debates? As long as they are moderated properly, I don't see what the problem would be.

The problem with your reasoning is that you're not accounting for where the money comes from. Obama's campaign is swimming in cash because he went to the grassroots and he continues to draw huge numbers of small donations, whereas Clinton is running on fumes because her financial support came mostly from wealthy people who have already run into the donations cap and legally can't give her any more. Obama's fundraising regime is inherently more democratic than Clinton's, so effectively the money race is already balanced on a democratic basis--it's just that the more democratic method is commensurately more effective.

[Adrian Laguna]

I honestly can't believe how much I loathe Hillary Clinton at this point. At the start of this seemingly interminable campaign, I just thought she wasn't a particularly good candidate. Now I think she's a walking, talking symbol of everything that's wrong with American politics.

You know, I'm starting to think that if Clinton wins the nomination somehow, and then miraculously wins the election, it will hurt the standing of the United States in the world. If McCain wins things don't improve, but they don't get worse either, the general impression is that he's Bush Mk.2, more of the same. At least people know how to deal with that, they know where he stands on issues. Clinton comes off as willing to sacrifice anyone and anything for her own interests, a person that unprincipled is difficult to trust, she may be on your side at the moment, but what happens if it suddenly becomes inconvenient? On top of that, Obama seems to be the world at large's favourite candidate, if she's seen as having stolen his chance for the Presidency...