An interesting discussion broke out in certain corners of the Intertoobz on Thursday night. It began with yet another discussion of Hillary Rodham Clinton's reluctance to do a formal press conference. It was argued by people whom I respect that this reluctance is a reliable indicator of what an HRC presidency would be like in terms of transparency.

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(Let us dispose of this point right here. If I had received the kind of coverage she's received for going on 25 years, I'd communicate with the media by postcard. Occasionally.)

I'm not sure this ever was entirely true, and I'm very certain it isn't true now. The process of getting elected president and the process of being president never have been less connected to each other. The process of electoral politics and the process of actually governing have been moving apart for decades now, and that dynamic has hit warp speed this year because one of the campaigns seems to be run by schizophrenic—and only marginally human—bridge trolls.

First things first. There always have been reasons why what happens in the campaign is a cloudier-than-usual Magic 8-Ball. There are institutional factors; who doubts that the president's first couple of years would have been closer to what he was talking about in the campaign had Joe Lieberman been whipped by Ned Lamont and/or the Baucus family had sent young Max to pharmacy school? And there is the inevitable Shit Happens Factor; nobody knew who the Ayatollah Khomeini was when Jimmy Carter was sworn in.

In addition, the formal press conference has become something of a dead parrot. The incumbent president is no great fan of them. It's entirely possible that the last actual news made at a presidential press conference occurred when Dan Rather tied into Richard Nixon at the height of Watergate. This isn't entirely the fault of the press. The formal press conference is likely a no-win proposition. It's either a massive homecourt advantage for the candidate or the press looks like an unruly, disrespectful rabble on national television. In addition, the candidates know it better than most of the press seems to, and the candidates have figured out something else.

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Technology has broken all the old rules to smithereens. It's not the first time that has happened. The presidential press conference hit its apex during the Kennedy Administration because the president made it good television when television was new. In 2008, the current president threw himself into the technology-driven unconventional new media. The formal press conference is of very little actual significance any more. It is now an empty ritual, like petting the pig in Iowa or flipping flapjacks in New Hampshire. It's one more useless hoop through which only the press expects anyone to jump.

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(And not for nothing, but, done well, the sit-down interview always has been a more serious way to assess a candidate as a possible president. For example, back in July, Maggie Haberman and David Sanger did a revelatory interview with Donald Trump that gave us a look at the candidate's knowledge of foreign affairs. Of course, this had the immediate effect of having most readers hiding under their beds, but it did give a real look at the Trumpian view of the world. I think HRC would benefit from doing more of these.)

Beyond all that, however, campaigns have become independent rampaging beasts. They are not "beauty contests" or "horse races." They are closer to Ninja Warrior competitions. They move too fast now, with too much power behind them. The average voter barely gets a glimpse of what kind of a candidate a candidate is. To use them to predict behavior in the Oval Office is like trying to predict the engineer's breakfast order by watching the bullet train go by in the middle of the night.

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I wish this were not the case, but the process of becoming president has moved so far from the process of being president that there likely is no hope of reconciling them ever again. There is one primary difference; even with Donald Trump in the race, the process of becoming president is frenzied, but somewhat predictable, but the process of being president is both frenzied and completely unpredictable.

Campaigns have become independent rampaging beasts.

Is there any doubt in anybody's mind what the questions at a HRC press conference would be like? Will there be a single question that will give us the faintest splinter of light as to what she will be like as president? The questions will all be about her actions as they relate to her campaign. They have to be, because who in the hell knows who HRC's personal Khomeini will be? Everybody pretends this is not the case, but everybody knows it is. In eight years, George W. Bush held 210 press conferences. Did we learn anything from any of them about what was really going on with Dick Cheney's energy committee or at the black sites in Thailand?

The president is not the entire executive branch. It is a mistake to cover the executive branch as though the president were. This goes double for covering a potential executive branch only through potential presidents.

The great divorce between the politics of campaigning and the politics of governing goes all the way back to the very beginning of the country. (There are hundreds of quotes about the dangers of parties—or of "faction," if you will—from the Founders. The first thing they all did when the Constitution was up and running was to form themselves into political parties and start laying clubs on each other.) But they now have moved so far from each other as to have virtually no relationship. No press conference is going to bridge that distance.

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Every election, even this one, has become a cosmic crapshoot with the future of the country. Nobody likes it, but we're all at the table, rolling the dice blindfolded.

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