Half the debates, double the candidates.
Republican National Committee communications director Sean Spicer valiantly takes to the
Wall Street Journal to defend the upcoming car wreck that is the 2016 Republican primary debates, as well as the car wreck's severely truncated schedule this time around. We totally meant to do this, everyone. Having all those debates last time around was a terrible disservice to voters,
yeah, that's the ticket.
The schedule kept candidates off the campaign trail, robbing them of time that otherwise could have been spent meeting with voters, listening to their concerns and trying to earn their support.
There was also frustration about debate hosts and moderators, some of whom had concocted bizarre and irrelevant questions.
So now everything's going according to plan. Instead of twenty-odd debates we'll prune it down to nine so that the candidates aren't pulled away from their
fundraisers deeply interesting meetings with Joe Average Voter so often, and we're now requiring debate hosts to partner up with hard-right outlets because
that's sure to keep kooky nutcase questions from popping up and making the movement look bad. And oh yes, the bit about having more candidates than actual debates? Totally not a problem. A good thing!
Right now the Republican Party suffers from an abundance of riches when it comes to the historic quantity of quality candidates: They can’t fit on one stage.
"Quality."
Those who dispute the use of national polls as the basis of deciding who’s onstage for the first two debates should keep in mind that networks may use different criteria for subsequent ones.
For example, a debate only for the candidates who can pronounce "nuclear" correctly. A debate only for candidates who can find the places they want to bomb on a globe. A debate for anyone whose last name does not rhyme with "rump." (Just kidding on those first two.)
This system may not be perfect, but had the RNC not tried to improve the debate process, I can assure you that the debates would be neither this inclusive nor this orderly.
And so the ship sails on. All is well, the captain says. We may not know where we're going, but we're making damn good time.