Rieder: It's undebatable, Democrats need more debates

Rem Rieder | USA TODAY

With so much attention focused on Donald Trump and his domination of the Republican conversation, you may not have heard that the Democrats are also having a presidential primary.

But they are, and a debate is developing over whether the Democratic National Committee is rigging the game for longtime Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

More specifically, it's a debate over debates.

The DNC is sponsoring six debates, the same number it did for the 2008 primary. The difference this time around is that it has decreed that candidates are not permitted to participate in debates put on by anyone else. If they do, they'll be banned from the rest of the official debates.

Just four of the square-offs are scheduled before the Iowa caucus on Feb. 1, the first primary balloting. There's just one in Iowa and one in New Hampshire, which often play an important role in the winnowing process.

By contrast, there were 17 debates in 2008, when Barack Obama upended that contest's initial prohibitive favorite — one Hillary Clinton.

Why is this a big deal? Debates give lesser-known candidates a chance to show their wares, to make their cases to a wide audience. Thanks no doubt to Trumpnado, the first GOP debate on Fox News Channel attracted a whopping 24 million viewers, the largest non-sports audience in the history of cable. While the Democratic audiences won't be nearly that large, the events nevertheless offer an unmatched opportunity for candidates to level the playing field.





The confabs also subject the favorite, in this case Clinton, to intense scrutiny. While this no doubt puts her at risk, it also will toughen her up for the general election campaign should she prevail. The Republican candidates, by contrast, will have endured 11 officially sanctioned clashes.

It was Clinton's wobbly response in a 2007 debate to a question about driver's licenses for immigrants that indicated that perhaps the inevitable one wasn't all that inevitable.

Two of Clinton's rivals, Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley, have been complaining loudly in recent days about the number and the timing of the debates.

At the DNC's summer meeting in Minneapolis last Friday, O'Malley charged that the party leadership in effect was intervening to ensure the nomination for Clinton.

“This sort of rigged process has never been attempted before," he said.

Sanders also was critical of the small number of debates, saying Sunday on CNN's State of the Union that the decision was "dead wrong." He suggested adding some single-topic debates, including one on the environment.

But DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was sitting near O'Malley when he ripped into the debate schedule, has shown no signs of backing down.

She should. The debates, while imperfect — and not technically debates — play an important role in the electoral process. They give the American public a better sense of who the candidates are. And being put to the test, as the GOP candidates were by the tough questioning in their first debate by Fox's three moderators, can lead to important revelations about the rivals.

While Clinton has long been in the lead in this contest, a coronation is hardly a good idea. Her ham-fisted handling of controversy over her use of a private email server while secretary of State raises questions about her judgment and reinforces some of her worst characteristics. Her lead is shrinking. Her negatives are high. The excitement generated by Sanders and the flurry of speculation over a possible run by Vice President Biden reflect the unsettled nature of the race.

So, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, take the high road and reverse course. Schedule more debates. Let others have some as well. Let the sunshine in.

What's so scary about that?