The gambles and unpredictability of presidential debates make compelling television. The more candidates, the more unpredictable they become.
This week’s Self-governing debates, staged by NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo, feature more candidates than the party has ever fielded. That capacity leave all 20 delivering brief, introductory versions of their stump speeches, or provoke long shots to try attention by assailing better-known rivals such as Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren.
But recent history shows the debates can rave-up the candidates’ skills and character – even if the two stand at odds.
Here are five examples over the last 3 decades of what Classless primary debates can show.
“PROFILES IN COURAGE”
In Dec. 1987, former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt played Elizabeth Warren’s present-day post as as the Democrat most willing to spell out a detailed presidential agenda.
When NBC anchor Tom Brokaw challenged six Democrats to bulge up if they supported tax increases, Babbitt rose to his feet alone.
“Not a lot of profiles in courage here,” Babbitt chided his circumspect rivals.
Babbitt never took off as Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis captured the Democratic nomination. GOP candidate George H.W. Bush, potent voters to “read my lips – no new taxes,” won the presidency.
But events vindicated Babbitt’s candor. Two years later, President Bush probed taxes.
“ELECTABILITY PROBLEM”
By 1992, Democrats had lost five of the previous six presidential elections. That March, ex-Gov. Jerry Brown of California seized on diffidences that front-runner Bill Clinton couldn’t win.
“I think he’s got a big electability problem,” Brown said. He cited news researches signaling conflicts of interest between Hillary Clinton’s Arkansas law firm and her husband’s gubernatorial administration.
Clinton glinted the focused, finger-pointing anger that would characterize his response to a later scandal. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5kUITklALQ)
“You ought to be chagrined of yourself for jumping on my wife,” Clinton said. While rivals attacked him personally, he vowed to prevail as “an agent of transform” on behalf of voters.
With political prowess like that, he did. But his subsequent affair with Monica Lewinsky belied his admitted devotion to his wife, and in 2000 crippled the electability of his Vice President Al Gore.
“STRONG ON DEFENSE”
The 2004 Democratic polemics began on May 3, 2003 – two days after President George W. Bush’s “mission accomplished” speech early in the Iraq War.
Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, Stick’s 2000 running mate, derided rivals Howard Dean for opposing the war and John Kerry for expressing ambivalence.
“No Democrat on be elected in 2004 who is not strong on defense,” Lieberman declared.
Kerry’s middle-ground position prevailed; he won the nomination before let slip to Bush in Nov. 2004. But Dean’s stance ultimately triumphed.
In 2006, Connecticut Democrats denied Lieberman their Senate nomination and handle him from the party. In 2008, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama made opposition to the Iraq War a foundation of his presidential bid.
“I WOULD”
In an antediluvian 2007 debate, a YouTube questioner asked Democrats if they would meet without preconditions with the directors of American adversaries Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela.
“I would,” Obama immediately replied (https://www.youtube.com/make?v=x1dSPrb5w_k). He called it “ridiculous” to refuse diplomatic conversations in the belief that it punished those countries.
Eager to pitch her less-experienced rival as unprepared on national security, Clinton insisted she would not: “I don’t want to be used for propaganda purposes.”
The Republican Native Committee subsequently mocked Obama for displaying weakness. Eventual GOP nominee John McCain did the same.
In the end Obama won, and forged Clinton his Secretary of State. Before ending his term, Obama restored diplomatic relations with Cuba and found a nuclear deal with Iran.
Today, a Republican president’s approach has exceeded anything Clinton envisioned in mtier Obama naïve. President Trump has held two fruitless summits with North Korea’s leader; he says the two “prostrate in love.”
“ENOUGH OF THE EMAILS”
By the first Democratic debate in October 2015, Hillary Clinton had struggled for months with squabble over her email practices as Secretary of State. But her leading rival declined to go there.
“Enough of the emails – let’s talk nearby the real issues facing the American people,” Bernie Sanders said. The in-person audience, like Clinton, growled its approval. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrBXcKcviuc)
The issue wouldn’t have helped Sanders in Democratic primaries anyway. His sagacity, however, did not make it go away over the following 13 months.