Parties’ prerogative
Neither the Democratic National Committee nor the Republican National Committee has ever organized a presidential primary debate when their party held the White House and the president was running for re-election (lists of past debates are here and here). Of course the party committees — and most rank-and-file members of the party — would naturally tend to rally around the president, the titular head of the party, the person who, by virtue of experience and incumbency, is generally seen as having the strongest chances of beating the opposition in the general election.
It’s no surprise that Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene were, well, all atwitter savoring their chance to call out Democrats for not scheduling 2024 primary debates, yet they had no issue with the absence of RNC-organized debates in 2020 (or ever). Intellectual honesty is among the last things we’d expect from this bunch.
In the 2020 cycle, Business Insider and Forbes each sponsored a debate for Republican primary candidates. The incumbent declined to participate in either.
Reasonable standards
Despite both parties’ traditions, there may be cases when a president arguably should participate in a primary debate — in particular when the president is challenged by another experienced public servant in their party. So, arguably, Donald Trump ought to have debated former two-term Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, Jimmy Carter ought to have debated longtime Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy, and Gerald Ford ought to have debated former two-term California governor Ronald Reagan.
What about a challenger who isn’t an experienced fellow public servant?
While all of our presidents so far — with the exception of Trump — have had public service experience (counting military service), lack of such experience doesn’t necessarily preclude a person from being a good national leader. A notable example is Ukraine’s current president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Past candidates without government experience who have appeared on the Democratic presidential debate stage include social justice activist Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was a strong runner-up in the 1988 primaries, winning over 1000 delegates. In the 2020 cycle, inclusion in early debates was based on a demonstrated ability to meet a fairly small threshold in popular opinion polls and fundraising. So if, hypothetically, the DNC broke with tradition and organized debates this cycle, candidates like lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and author Marianne Williamson might qualify based on their popularity among a slice of the electorate.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. speaks to protesters opposed to government coronavirus policies in Germany, August, 2020
However, Kennedy, once well-respected for his pro-environment litigation, has become a conspiracist who adamantly promotes anti-vaccine quackery. Arguably, it would be irresponsible to afford him an opportunity to do so on a presidential debate stage. Here’s a statement that ABC News reporter Linsey Davis read following her recent interview with Kennedy about his candidacy:
We should note that during our conversation Kennedy made false claims about the Covid-19 vaccines. Data show that Covid-19 vaccines have prevented millions of hospitalizations and deaths from the disease. He also made misleading claims about the relationship between vaccination and autism. Research shows that vaccines and the ingredients used for the vaccines do not cause autism including multiple studies involving more than a million children and major medical associations like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the advocacy group Autism Speaks. We’ve used our editorial judgment in not including extended portions of that exchange in our interview. We thank Mr. Kennedy for the conversation.
When a candidate’s rhetoric is so pernicious that a news organ is compelled to perform a hazmat cleanup effort like this after a recorded interview, would it not be even more irresponsible to afford the candidate a live platform to spew their conspiratorial pollution?
Realpolitik
In the previous section, in order to raise philosophical questions, I imagined a hypothetical where the DNC breaks with tradition and holds primary debates this cycle. In reality, neither a Bobby Kennedy, Jr. nor a Marianne Williamson has the stature within the Democratic Party that Ted Kennedy had in 1980 and surely only a party member of stature could motivate such a break with tradition — and even Ted Kennedy didn’t manage it (the party organized no debates; Kennedy, whose campaign was not doing well, repeatedly requested one; Carter declined.) In the 2024 cycle, no Democrat of stature is challenging the incumbent president, which is typical and not at all unexpected.
Of course, if RFK Jr. were ever to run for an open presidential seat, the question raised above of whether it’s irresponsible to give him a podium on the presidential debate stage is something the DNC would have to consider.
Certainly a case can be made that it would be good for the nation if incumbent presidents engaged in primary debates both with fellow politicians (even if the politicians have less stature within the party than Ted Kennedy had) and with activists who may be running only to focus attention on particular topics they care about such as climate action, social justice, reproductive rights, gun violence, etc.
Joe Biden at a rally in Detroit, March, 2020
But presidential campaigns (by folks who are serious about winning) tend to be extremely careful to avoid unforced errors. For example, advance teams are meticulous about the details when setting up campaign events, not just for logistical and security purposes, but also for the optics, knowing that opponents could pounce on any perceived faux pas, which could then explode in social and traditional media. I would imagine any president’s campaign would view it as a bad risk for the candidate to engage in “non-essential” debates where anything unexpected could generate a distracting/damaging news cycle. Arguably, presidential election stakes are far too high to risk unforced errors, particularly given the modern Republican Party’s willingness to nominate extraordinarily dangerous candidates.
Thought experiment
While it’s hardly a likely scenario, suppose Joe Manchin challenged Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination. Let’s imagine his motivation is ideological: he wants to be a gadfly to push the party rightward. Would there be a primary debate? Should there be?
Sens. Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer at the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act at the White House, August, 2022
As a former governor, current U.S. senator, and a member of the Senate Democratic Leadership, he would seem to pass the stature test. While his loyalty to the party is certainly questionable — for example, in 2019 he stated on Fox News that he wouldn’t support the Democratic presidential candidate if a fellow member of the Democratic Leadership, Bernie Sanders, won the nomination — for purposes of this hypothetical, let’s assume this cycle Manchin pledged to support the nominee.
In view of the tradition of no debates for incumbents, I would guess the DNC would defer to the incumbent’s prerogative. Biden, who would obviously be the far-and-away front-runner, could decline to debate Manchin just as Carter declined to debate Kennedy. But in this case, I think the cost-benefit analysis might come out in favor of it. A debate between the president and the senator would afford the president the opportunity to present the American electorate a solid case for traditional Democratic progressivism, and to do so on the stage with an opponent who, while combatively conservative, is not batshit crazy. That sort of debate could be helpful for both the president and progressivism, though, of course, there’s no guarantee it would.
It’s just a thought experiment, not a scenario I’m rooting for.
