Dear Bill,
I don't know if you are a Kossack, although I hope you will be reading this. As someone whose been visiting Daily Kos since back in the day when Marisacat, Steve Gilliard and Billmon were regulars, I can't see how you could have avoided being drawn into this community, but you might have been run away in disgust if you visited first during the primary election campaign in 2004. If you did not visit then, I can reliably report that primary season in 2004 was just as bad for Daily Kos as it is this year. The constant pushing and jostling for idiotic advantage and the lack of intellectual honesty was just as bad then. This is the problem I hope you might help Daily Kos with. The subject of this letter. I hope, by extension, you might help the Democratic Party and our prospects in 2008.
The only use of my low Daily Kos user id is as a badge of prestige, especially when people rail at me as an imposter, a spammer, a troll, or even recently, a closet Republican, but I have been visiting Daily Kos as long as practically anyone. I can't claim to speak for the community when I ask you a favor in this letter. Kos himself doesn't claim to speak for the community, although people seem to hold him responsible for everything that gets said here. I will claim, however, as a conceit, to speak for a faction on Daily Kos in this letter. I think it is a large faction, composed of individuals who now find themselves in love with all three of the candidates, Clinton, Edwards and Obama.
Each has won me over, and they have managed to do so in a way which has not been at the other's expense. They have won me without scapegoating each other. Through their quality and courtesy, the candidates have created the possibility of a kind of debate going forward that builds the kind of transformation in American politics that Reagan accomplished, but one leading to more children receiving dental care, not less, for example. Obama is right that it is to time to leave off our longing for the Great Society, our anger at Vietnam and Reagan, and look forward. When you look forward, Democratic policies become about investing in people based on hope, but when you look backward, they are about reacting to Reagan. All three have come to a place of revelation in political consciousness, ane each individually will help us get past triangulation and achieve historical progress for America.
Reaganism is always trying to pull us back. I am sick of shame at how the country I love treats the poor here at home and around the world. But hatred and reaction to Reagan, or the millions and millions of people in his cult, is not the way anymore. I am leaning a bit towards Obama this week, I confess, because he shows us how to approach Republican Americans with bemused and loving detachment. A good person may hold a counter productive idea.
So, representing the faction of the party that loves all three candidates, I am asking you to propose and moderate a Presidential Primary Debate. This debate would have an unusual format, easy to understand and sure to be remembered in the history of political debate. It might not fly. One of the teams may tease out a small advantage or disadvantage for one or the other candidates in a focus group, and scotch the deal. I think, though, that if you were to ask the candidates directly on our behalf, and agree to moderate it, I think they would agree because of the positive effect it would have for the prospects of the eventual winner in the general election. In other words, it would be an opportunity for our three wonderful candidates to work together to promote the Democratic agenda to the American people within a competitive debate, but which has a cooperative format which I will explain.
The debate would be divided into three twenty minute blocks. Within each block, the three candidates would have a different role, but by the end, each will play each role. The format within each block would be ostensibly two vs. one, Edwards and Clinton vs. Obama, Clinton and Obama vs. Edwards, but the two sides would have different roles. The two would confer for us as a President and Vice President would, responding to questions about WHAT THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION NEEDS TO DO, from the third candidate, who is in the role of representing a great Senator. This is actually a high probability outcome for our party and the country, anyway, so this is not a far-fetched projection of discussions the three might be having in the future anyway. Two of the three are likely to be President and Vice President with the third positioned to be the greatest Senator of our generation. If the party were strong enough to have the three playing these roles over the next twenty four years, we would have changed America into the country we know it can be.
So you would moderate, but the individual candidate as Senator would be the one asking the hard questions we expect of our Senators, not trying to put the other candidates on the spot exactly, or engineer an embarassing gaff, but working together in the debate to find how best to succeed for the country. Each be able to make their own case. I think the candidates may agree to participate in such a debate, not only because it would be the highest rated primary debate in history, something positive and different, but because it would increase the odds of all three individually being President over the next twenty four years. Obama said the other day that he does not present himself as a singular figure, but Caesar also said that.. How better to demonstrate this by forming a triumvarate that works! Obama, Clinton and Edwards could transform American politics, but only if they trust each other and work together. I hope my fellow Democrats agree that this would be the best outcome for the primary season.