A proposal for the Democratic Party:
Senators Cory Booker (New Jersey), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Kirsten
Gillibrand (New York), Kamala Harris (California), Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota), Bernie
Sanders (Vermont), and Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts); Governors Steve
Bullock (Montana) and Jay Inslee (Washington); Representative Tulsi Gabbard
(Hawaii); Mayor Pete Buttigieg (South Bend, Indiana); former Vice President Joe
Biden; former Governor John Hickenlooper (Colorado); and former Representative
Beto O’Rourke (TX) are all in, or very likely to be in, the Presidential Race. And there may be more reasonably credible candidates. So it is
time for the Democratic National Committee (and/or MSNBC, CNN, PBS, and even
Fox) to lay down an approach for the candidates to be properly assessed by the
Democratic Primary electorate.
Traditional debates would
be useless at this point. All the
candidates or potential candidates agree on the broadest policy outlines, so
what voters need is to learn the details of their proposals on such complex
matters as, for example, how to reach Universal Health Care, how to achieve a
fairer and more productive tax system, how to address Climate Change, and how to deal with foreign policy. And
we need to get a sense of how they think and how well-informed they are. None of this can be gleaned from debates
where candidates have a minute or two to answer specific questions. Debates
were verbal Twitter before Twitter existed.
So what should be done? I suggest the following for 2019:
A series of weekly, nationally-televised
discussions, randomly picking three or for candidates at a time, moderated by
smart, objective, skilled journalists who would have the candidates actually
talk about the key issues in depth.
After hearing these discussions, voters would have a better
idea of to whom they will wish to contribute their money and time. That process likely will winnow down the
field to something more manageable before the voting actually begins.
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