What do Massachusetts Democrats Dan Koh, Andrea Campbell and Deborah Goldberg have in common with odious nightcrawler Ken Paxton, the GOP nominee for Senate in Texas?
They’ve all refused to debate their opponents.
In Paxton’s case, there’s the understandable fear that he’ll be exposed as a moron. But that’s not the case with Koh, the articulate nominee for Congress in the Sixth District, or the experienced incumbent attorney general and state treasurer, all facing little-known, underfunded challengers saddled with the R next to their name in a year when, in Massachusetts, that’s poison.
Instead, they are part of a pathetic trend in American politics toward blowing off debates.
A recent ABC News analysis found that 21 of the 36 gubernatorial races this year will not include a debate between the major-party nominees. That’s a dramatic implosion from eight years ago, when only two of 36 races went debate-less. The numbers are just as bad in Senate contests; 21 of 35 have nothing scheduled. Two years ago, it was nine out of 34.
Why? Ohio Democratic gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton told ABC she didn’t care to “platform” her opponent’s “lies.” While pitiful, that at least has the ring of candor. Not so for the incumbent Democratic Governor of Arizona Katie Hobbs, whose campaign insists that “face-to-face engagement with Arizonans is more effective than a stage designed for short soundbites and political theater."
More effective in covering her hindquarters, she means.
And Tommy Tuberville, the dumbest member of the “World’s Greatest Debating Society,” the U.S. Senate, nixed a debate with his Democratic challenger on the grounds that “there’s so much difference between us…there’s no reason to get up there and argue about differences of opinion.”
Just so! Why participate in the democratic process when it’s so much easier to spit on it and ignore it?
Debates give interested voters an opportunity to compare and vet the candidates who want to wield significant power over their lives and communities. Denying them that opportunity out of cowardice, stupidity or one candidate’s clear edge in cash on hand or name recognition is like telling shoppers in a supermarket they have to choose from the peaches on the top row. Don’t you be sifting through the pile looking for something a bit less rotten!
What is this, Russia? And there’s recent evidence that unless you’re simply not up to the task of performing the duties of the office — and thus ought to get the hell off the stage — it’s wise for an incumbent to debate an opponent.
Sen. Ed Markey used his three debates with Seth Moulton to dispel any doubt that at 80 years old he still had the vigor to do the job. And while one can reasonably wish he would agree to more than the one debate with Republican John Deaton hosted by WBZ-TV last week, the fact is he did it, in a strenuous format that allowed lengthy, aggressive challenge. Deaton landed some punches, but only the most rank partisan would claim he knocked Markey out.
Debates carry risk, but they rarely if ever do severe damage to a frontrunner. When they do, as in the June 2024 Biden/Trump debate, it’s because they expose an unflattering, previously concealed truth.
Remember truth? Too many of today’s politicians would prefer you not to access it.
Shall we outsource the electoral process entirely to clever ad-makers, big-money donors and scummy internet bot farms? Hell no.
And that shouldn’t be debatable.
