Presidential Debates.... Not a Waste of Time After All

Everyone from George Will to Jon Stewart has taken to mocking the supposed excess of Presidential debates. The debates thus far have been far from perfect: the large number of candidates forces discussion of complex issues down to thirty-second sound bites, compromising intelligent discourse even more than in election cycles past. Organizing debates with fewer candidates might mitigate this problem, but this raises the inevitable difficulty of deciding fairly who will participate in each debate - and the specter of lesser-known candidates crying foul anytime a debate occurs without them (recall Kucinich's indignant response to the Clinton-Edwards private exchange over smaller debates).

Flawed as they are, the primary debates thus far been undeniably successful in helping citizens to get a better understanding of candidates. For those of us who do not live in Iowa or New Hampshire, and are not rich enough to attend fund-raising dinners, they represent one of the precious few changes to see candidates in action. This is especially true for dark-horse candidates - e.g. Mike Huckabee or Bill Richardson -and the free media exposure that comes through the debates can at least conceivably mitigate the phenomenon of requiring that people already be famous before they can be Presidential contenders.

More than mere familiarity, however, the practice of having competing candidates answer the same questions has drawn attention to substantive differences among the front-runners in each party. It was in response to a question during the August YouTube debate that Obama vowed to talk with leaders - of Syria, Iran, Venezuela, et al. - that the U.S. currently shuns; citing Cold War history, Obama criticized the notion that "the U.S. can punish or change hostile states simply by ignoring them." In response to the same question Hillary pounced on Obama as naive, refusing to commit to talk with leaders who would exploit her for propaganda purposes (specifically Ahmadinejad).

Whatever your position on the merits, the exchange revealed one of the first substantive foreign policy differences between Clinton and Obama (Hillary's vote to brand Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization has subsequently revealed another). The debates have also drawn attention to lesser policy differences, such as the disagreement between Edwards and Obama over whether a health care plan can achieve universal coverage without mandating that everyone purchase insurance.

Beyond highlighting policy differences, one learns a lot about a candidate's character by him to think on his feet. Thus, perhaps the most revealing moment of the debates thus far was Mitt Romney's answer to a question about whether the Constitution would oblige the President to seek Congressional authorization for a strategic attack on Iran's nuclear facilities (think Osirak).
Romney replied:

You sit down with your attorneys and tell you want you have to do, but obviously the president of the United States has to do what's in the best interest of the United States to protect us against a potential threat. The president did that as he was planning on moving into Iraq and received the authorization of Congress.

When pressed by Chris Matthews for a clarification, Romney once again insisted that he would "sit down with his attorneys." For a Presidential candidate to punt on a question of such import reveals a frightening lack of seriousness. Coupled with Romney's proposal to "double Guantanamo" (also given during a debate), the Iran answer further illustrated to me the danger of putting Romney in charge of U.S. armed forces.

In the interest of more policy clash and more glimpses into candidate thoughtfulness, I say - more debates! If more candidates can candidates can ape the humor of McCain's Woodstock quip, these things might really become worth watching.