The Republicans' Debate Problem

The Republicans have a debate problem.  It's become quite clear, as the first two debates of the primary are scheduled on CNN and FOX News, that the Republicans have a quagmire that needs to be addressed, and that there isn't a particularly great way to solve it.  It comes in the form of sixteen major candidates for president, noteworthy either for their current or recent positions in major political office or for the level of fame they have achieved through political commentary or out-and-out celebrity.  Sixteen candidates is a ridiculously large amount of people to have on-stage, and would turn into a circus.  Both networks have tried to find a way to solve this issue, with both basing their decisions to be in the "premiere" debate on the Top 10 candidates, while FOX News will give other coverage that day to candidates not selected while CNN will hold a "second-tier" debate with the lesser candidates that absolutely no one will watch except in hopes of seeing some gaffes.

This is certainly a problem for the networks, particularly since they don't want to appear unfair.  If you were a network head you'd either want to have a complete catastrophe on-stage (in which case you'd throw some of the more incendiary candidates into the debate to see what happens for ratings) or you'd just preclude the candidates who don't have a legitimate shot and are never going to show up on any national tickets.  The reality is that at this point we know that Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, and Ted Cruz all have enough support nationally to win the nomination and should be featured.  Not all of them (particularly the latter two) have a great shot at winning the general, but they've established a base of support within the party, have polled well in at least a couple of early states, and are either current or major office-holders who haven't been out of the public eye for so long that they would consider jokes.  Plus, this is a debate for the nomination, not for the White House-that comes later.

I'd also wager that Ohio Gov. John Kasich, provided he gets a bit of press, is what you'd consider a serious candidate for president.  He's the head of the quintessential swing state, a longtime officeholder in the Republican Party, and is going to be on every one of those men's shortlists for VP if he doesn't make it through the primaries.  Throw in Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has the potential to upend the South Carolina primary by way of native son status, as well as being one of the biggest voices in foreign policy in the Republican Primary, and you have eight major candidates for office that, while a little bit cumbersome onstage, would probably fit the bill in terms of who should be the candidates onstage.

Of course, the media doesn't want to be seen as arbitrarily selecting candidates that should be the nominees, and this is where the GOP takes its hits because I don't have any great solutions here, since basing the debates on polling makes sense on paper until you realize the problems with such a solution. For starters, Kasich and Graham are going to poll low due to their nationally limited profiles even though they could well do better down the road with a strong debate performance.  Other people, however, could show up on national polls above them that would be disasters.  Also-ran candidates like Rick Santorum and Rick Perry, both of whom lost in 2012 and are never going to be president, have the name recognition that could land them relatively high in some polling, at least enough to make a Top 10.  You're also left with the embarrassing situation of polling costing a high-profile Republican like Chris Christie, who will surely still run and would endure a huge public slap-in-the-face if he was precluded by, say, Ben Carson as a result of polling.  Someone like Carly Fiorina could make it into the race by virtue of the same celebrity, and we'd be sacrificing a real candidate like John Kasich as a result, who may be at 2-4% to Fiorina's 5%, but that's her ceiling and his floor.

And finally there's Donald Trump.  Trump is smart enough to know that he could make the Top 8 or Top 10 in a debate based on his national notoriety and by using his enviable position as a celebrity to gain headlines.  No, he's not a serious candidate for president and he's someone like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio's worst nightmare since he'll lob issues like gay rights, global warming, and immigration toward them that will make them look horrible for the general or primary, depending on the answer.  But he's not running for president, he's running to gain press for his insatiable ego.  And he's got the sort of national profile that these rules would allow into the debates.

I honestly don't think the Republicans are in a great bartering position here, because they have to figure out a way to rule out candidates and part of this is a device of their own doing (I keep going back to how if Carly Fiorina were a man she wouldn't have received any press upon her announcement based on her professional resume-the Republicans created some of these candidates themselves).  Some have suggested that they take the sixteen candidates (the one I haven't listed yet is New York Governor George Pataki, for those counting at home) and randomly assign them to a debate, but don't get me started on the uproar of what happens when Marco Rubio and Scott Walker end up in the same debate while Jeb Bush is stuck with Trump and Santorum.  Part of me thinks they need to do this debate once and start chipping away at a field that is WAY too large for a modern campaign to handle.  And part of me thinks the GOP needs to find a solution that works fairly with the public while not dismissing potentially strong candidates who are just getting off the ground, because this is a problem the Democrats aren't going to have, and that's something truly to care about if you don't want a repeat of 2012's "Defining of Mitt Romney."