In a Friday editorial, The Richmond Times-Dispatch called for changes to the current model of presidential general election debates, saying the “country has events that look like debates” but they are really “simultaneous news conferences…guaranteed to produce a focus on the trivial triumvirate of GGZ: gaffes, gotchas and zingers.”
On the subject of including alternative party presidential candidates, the newspaper wrote, “The argument against doing so holds that they have no real chance of winning. But the same also could be said about many of the candidates who compete in the major-party primary debates. What is the argument for letting, say, Herman Cain in the Republican debates for the 2012 nomination but forbidding Libertarian Gary Johnson, a former governor, from joining the Romney-Obama debates?”
Well, I can’t say that I disagree with any of the major points above. More than half the announced Republican candidates (Huckabee, Santorum, and Christie, for example) have no more chance to win than Gary Johnson, although they’d likely get more votes.Calling the debates “simultaneous news conferences” seems apt.