opinion

Kirsten Powers: DNC shields Hillary from debate stage

Following the first GOP debate, Democratic National Committee Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz disingenuously quipped to a reporter, “I sort of feel for my counterpart Reince Priebus because it’s pretty clear why they did everything they could to shrink the number of debates and shrink the exposure.”

You know who else shrunk the number of debates? Democrats. Wasserman Schultz seems to be telling us why: Hillary Clinton can’t handle the exposure.

The Republican Party is on track to hold twice as many debates as the Democratic Party. The GOP has eight debates scheduled, with three pending. The Democrats will face off only six times, compared with the 27 Democratic primary debates in 2008.

Though the GOP has already held its first debate, with another scheduled for September, the Democratic candidates won’t gather to debate until October. Ripping a page out of the Republican Party playbook, the Democratic Party will retaliate against any candidate who participates in a debate not sanctioned by the DNC.

Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley have complained loudly about this crackdown. “We need serious debate about serious issues,” Sanders told CBS News. “There’re so many major problems facing our country. I think more debates is better. And I think having different organizations sponsor debates outside of the DNC makes a lot of sense to me.” As the candidate drawing crowds in the tens of thousands, it would seem he should have some standing in influencing the debate schedule.

But party insiders are making sure their preferred candidate — Hillary Clinton — is protected from debate. “It’s all about trying to preordain the outcome, circle the wagons and close off debate,” O’Malley told The Hill. “If (the Democratic Party leaders) could actually accelerate the date of the Iowa caucuses and hold them tomorrow — they’d like to do that. Then there’d be no campaign at all. That’s what they’d really like.”

O’Malley asserted that the Clintons were flexing their muscles as “the most colossal, prolific fundraising couple in the history of representative democracies” to keep primary debates to a minimum. The former Maryland governor explained he had shared his concerns with Wasserman Schultz “that I think that’s a grave mistake and I think it’s undemocratic.”

He’s right. Democratic voters would seem to agree: According to an April Bloomberg Poll, nearly three-quarters of Democrats (and independents) said it would be good for the Democratic Party for Clinton to face a “serious” challenger. Instead, we have party officials and a Democratic front-runner who believe they have the right to stack the decks in favor of their desired outcome.

This scheme by Clinton’s DNC cronies is poised to backfire. While Democratic voters still favor Clinton in national polls, the margin is shrinking. Her arrogant and secretive email server shenanigans are reminding Americans just how entitled and unaccountable Clinton believes herself to be. Refusing to debate her primary opponents — including one who has ignited the kind of excitement Clinton could only dream of — will just fuel the sense that she believes she doesn’t have to campaign to become president.

At some point, perhaps party officials will realize she’s a terrible candidate who needs sharpening before battling the GOP nominee. It’s sad that self-interest might be the only motivator for Democratic Party officials to behave in a more democratic manner, but if that’s the only way, we’ll take it.

Kirsten Powers writes weekly for USA TODAY and is author of the upcoming “The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech.”