Democrats' debate strategy backfires

USA TODAY | The News-Press

To the leading lights of the Democratic Party, it must have seemed like a smart move. By limiting the number of debates among the party's presidential contenders and holding them at odd hours, they could nudge voters in the direction of Hillary Clinton, who is already widely known and seen as the party’s most formidable candidate.

But limiting debate almost never works, and it almost always triggers the law of unintended consequences.

In this case, it has allowed the Republicans to dominate the national conversation in the early stages of the presidential race. They have held five debates, to the Democrats’ three, and have not followed the Democrats’ peculiar practice of scheduling events on Saturday nights. As a result, the GOP debate audiences have been much larger — as many as 24 million viewers for the top-rated GOP debate, compared with fewer than 8 million for Saturday’s Democratic encounter.

The Republicans have used their massive platform to shape opinion, bash Clinton and leave what could be lasting (though not necessarily favorable) impressions. While they don’t yet have a common message about what a Republican presidency would entail, they do have one about the Democrats. You can’t get through 60 seconds of a Republican debate without hearing that President Obama and Clinton, as his former secretary of State, have made a mess of things around the world.

The huge Republican audiences may be mostly the result of the party’s unruly contest and its incendiary front-runner, Donald Trump. But Democrats shouldn’t take much comfort in this. While viewers may tune in for the mud wrestling, what they get is an effective political broadside.

The Democrats, for their part, have a decent counter-argument: that the GOP has been taken over by its far-right fringe, leaving Democrats as the only champions of the broad mainstream. But the party bosses are apparently so worried that Clinton could be derailed or commit a gaffe in the debates that they are willing to stifle this message.

Their most recent debate was held the Saturday before Christmas, when much of the public was out at holiday parties, doing last-minute shopping, taking in the new Star Wars movie or watching the New York Jets defeat the Dallas Cowboys. The scheduling was so odd that a spokesman for Bernie Sanders, Clinton's chief rival, could only quip: “I guess Christmas Eve was booked.”

Democracy is boisterous, unruly and competitive. The Democrats understood this in 2008, the last election without a Democratic incumbent in the White House. They staged 26 debates in all, 17 of which had been held by this time. They ended up with one of the most substantive nomination contests in history, and Barack Obama was battle-hardened by the time he went up against John McCain in the fall.

This time they are going in the opposite direction, trying to limit debates when the public’s interest in them is clearly on the rise. The ratings for Republican debates are shattering records. And even the Democratic numbers are impressive, considering what they are up against.

The Democratic Party should let its candidates define themselves — often and to large audiences. If they can’t, the Republicans will gladly do it for them.

Opposing view: Debates should give voters hope

This weekend’s debate gave Democrats much to be proud of, with our candidates drawing clear differences while still showing respect for one another and for the American people. That’s a big difference from the anger, bullying and insults of the Republican debates.

But while the substance is different, the logistics are similar. We believe six debates for five original candidates is comparable to the 11 debates scheduled for 17 original Republican candidates, with both parties setting similar sanction and exclusivity rules.

Both parties scheduled three broadcast network debates on NBC, CBS and ABC. Well, the GOP had three before pulling out of an NBC/Telemundo debate, their only debate with a Spanish-language media outlet.

The remaining GOP network debates are on Saturday nights — just like ours. Broadcast television networks have less flexibility than cable, so putting together a network debate takes a major effort among the party, the candidates, the network and the co-sponsors.

For those focused on ratings, it’s worth pointing out that our first debate from Las Vegas broke the record for all Democratic primary debates with 15.8 million viewers. In fact, our smallest audience this year was larger than 58 of 61 Democratic and Republican debates in the 2008 and 2012 cycles.

To be fair, the Republican debates this year have drawn larger audiences, in the same way that a crowd of onlookers will gather to gawk at a car crash. Donald Trump’s extreme and xenophobic antics, with most of the field tripping over themselves to match or out-do him, is good for ratings, but bad for the Republican Party. With each episode, the Republicans show how ill-equipped they are to lead our nation.

We Democrats are engaged in serious, substantive conversations about moving our country forward. Beyond the debates, our candidates are also engaged in forums, town halls and other events that allow them to connect with voters and get their messages out.

Our candidates have made me so proud to be a Democrat, and I look forward to our debates and conversations about the issues that matter to the American people.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., chairs the Democratic National Committee.