Debating the Debates

There was some grumbling in conservative circles Monday about the moderators for the upcoming presidential and vice-presidential debates. Conservatives are prone to grumbling, of course, but it’s usually with good reason, and the announced line-up of the liberals who will be emceeing the big show is no exception.

Much is being made about the fact that the bill includes two women, Candy Crowley of CNN and Martha Raddatz of ABC, at the insistence of some people who apparently find such sexual diversity a matter of great importance, but the longstanding tradition of ideological uniformity will continue. The distaff moderators will share the job with the equally left-leaning Jim Lehrer of PBS and Bob Schieffer of CBS, giving conservatives reason to fret that the referees in each debate will be inclined to help out the other side.

A token conservative from Fox News or the Wall Street Journal or some other sizeable news organization for just one of the debates would have been nice, and a moderator-free format that allows the candidates to engage one another directly would have been even better. Presidential debates in recent decades have degenerated into joint press conferences, or even worse in those horrible “town hall” style events that allow uninformed and annoyingly inarticulate average citizens to ask for goodies on behalf of some special interest group or another, and it would be a great improvement if they were more like an actual debate. This would not only allow voters to hear the arguments each man has to make with the other’s position, but we expect it would also provide an advantage to Mitt Romney.

Nonetheless, Romney should be able to turn the moderators’ carefully calculated questions to his own advantage at some point. During the endless series of Republican primary debates each of the candidates discovered that they could win over the audience by confronting their interrogators and noting the underlying motive of the question, and although Republicans are more likely to enjoy such confrontations it should be noted that independents also have little regard for the media these days. If Romney pushes back with his usual gentlemanly demeanor, the sex of the moderators should not be a factor.

So long as Romney is able to keep the focus on Obama’s economic record, and get under Obama’s famously thin skin, he should do well despite the moderators’ best efforts. The inclusion of women in the debate will ultimately matter less than the absence of teleprompters.

— Bud Norman