Sunday, May 31, 2015

A modest proposal for cutting down the Republican field

Walter Shapiro has been covering presidential elections since Ronald Reagan was the hot new face in Washington. He thinks he knows how to solve the Republican conundrum, too many aspirants clamoring for too few debate minutes. If only the TV people would adopt it ...

No network, alas, would dare to embrace the ultimate free-market solution: Invite all the candidates to the debate and then after the introductions, the moderator would stroll off stage with these words, "I will be gone, but our cameras will be rolling for the next 90 minutes. Since you all see yourselves as leaders of the nation, you are invited to display your leadership skills by working out a fair way to debate the issues facing America."

4 comments:

Rain Trueax said...

Not a bad idea. I wonder if they purposely are doing this to make debates not a factor. Any of them show up poorly in a debate that forces them to answer tough questions of the day without resorting to their slick platitudes.

I've been reading how good Fiorina supposedly sounds but when you hear her actually have to address a question and not dodge around it you realize how much rhetoric it is and how right wing she is. She also has a lot to answer for what she did to not only HP but the company before it-- Lucent. She had a huge ego and did a lot to change the atmosphere at HP into one of queen bee and everybody else. If that's what righties want, they should at least check out her record and get past her canned answers. Which is the case with them all (including the dems except Sanders).

janinsanfran said...

Hi Rain: I agree that the saner people who have to work for the Republican primadonnas wish there were no debates.

We had a large dose of Carly Fiorina in California when she ran unsuccessfully for the Senate. Nothing there. First she gets booted from HP; then we punt her off the California stage; naturally she thinks that qualifies her to run for President.

Brandon said...

Many of these candidates will wash out before year's end. A few of these Republicans are RINOs and could join the other side. But seriously, it's good to see Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders giving Hillary Clinton at least some challenge.

Hattie said...

Brandon: I agree. Most of these tiresome self-important people will wash out. By January we should know who the serious contenders are.