Boy, do I hate to say it! I miss the presidential debates, even though they got less and less pertinent (to me) as the number of debaters shrank to two. But the post-debate primary season makes me long for three hours of questions about which kind of rubber chicken is the worst. Now we are parsing Hillary Clinton’s nightmares, as told by Hillary Clinton, and sermons by some obscure preacher, who none of us outside Chicago had ever heard of before March.
So, I have a modest proposal. BRING BACK THE DEBATES!
When we were having debates, the numbers of new Democrats kept growing and the divide between our nominee (whomever that might be) and the Republican’s kept growing, as well. Yea for the debates! But as soon as they ended, the media drifted off into a swamp and we got nitpicking and mudslinging. Our lead dwindled and we put McCain into semi-retirement, where all he does is relax and raise money. (May he find the golf course his natural habitat.)
I don’t like it.
It will come as a great shock to those who have ever, ever read one of my diaries before that I’m not the greatest fan of Hillary D.L.C. Clinton. But, the way she’s been treated this week makes me think that there’s a vast, right-wing conspiracy out to get her.
And the carping and harping on Obama is starting to make me ashamed of my country again. (Technically, I have a fully-formed brain, and so I’m not actually ashamed of the country, so much as some of its inhabitants.)
So, I’d really like to see someone, anyone, even Daily Kos, sponsor a series of debates. We need something to fill the void with content in the dog days leading up to the PA primary. We’ve got to get away from media slicing and dicing every little word said by the candidates, as if it were going to uncover some element of the candidates’ psyches that we didn’t know about before.
My suggestion is that we pick a substantive topic for each of the following weeks up until the end of April and get some civic minded-organization to sponsor a debate on that issue. Let’s explore, in depth, what the candidates think about:
- The war in Iraq.
- The war in Afghanistan.
- The war in Iran (if we don’t impeach Bush before he decides to flip the switch).
- Globalization and the disappearance of wealth-creating jobs in the U.S.
- Healthcare, should it be completely nationalized?
- The U.S. Constitution and disappearing privacy in the world.
- The crimes of the Bush Administration, and what to do about them.
- How to rein in the military/industrial complex and the rest of the corporatocracy.
- Put your own favorite real issue here.
This would force the media to move back to issues that draw a difference between our candidates, but more importantly between our candidates and John McCain. We are giving him a free pass.
Please, let’s debate. Thank you.