Trump is Right on the Debates

Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas would turn over in their graves if they saw how the Commission on Presidential Debates has bastardized public debate in the United States. Donald Trump is being criticized in the press for daring to take the Commission to task for scheduling two of the three debates opposite major NFL games. He’s also criticized the updated format and the proposed moderators. The media is up in arms — excoriating Trump for even suggesting that the system is “rigged”. The reality is that the Commission is “rigged” by design.

The media has repeatedly insisted that the Commission on Presidential Debates is non-partisan — nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, the Commission is a nonprofit corporation controlled entirely by the Democratic and Republican parties and funded by major corporations and wealthy individuals including Anheuser-Busch and Warren Buffett. The Commission is headed by long-time party elites Frank Fahrenkopf, a former head of the RNC, and former Clinton press secretary Michael D. McCurry. The Board of directors is similarly filled with both Republican and Democratic elites including Howard Buffett, John Danforth, Charles Gibson, John Griffen, Antonia Hernandez, John Jenkins, Newton Minow, Leon Panetta, Richard Parsons, Dorothy Ridings, Alan Simpson, Olympia Snowe, and Shirley Tilghman.

The “establishment” controls every aspect of the debates. The format, the location, the network, the moderator, and the date. In the past, when the nominee from each party was a member of the “establishment” the Commission worked well — 50/50 representation from Republicans and Democrats. The Republican members of the Commission supported the Republican nominee and worked to give him the best advantage and the Democratic members of the Commission supported the Democratic nominee and worked to give her the best advantage. Today? The Republican members of the Commission do NOT support the Donald Trump.

The Commission recently changed the format to deal with Trump’s “talkiness” and to showcase Hillary’s “punchy retorts” — a format that favors Hillary Clinton. In addition to changing the format the Commission scheduled two of the three debates during NFL games — scheduling that favors Hillary Clinton. Who on the Commission is advocating for Donald Trump’s interest? No one.

At the end of the day presidential debates have sucked for for as long as the Commission on Presidential Debates has existed. In Lincoln’s day the candidates themselves decided the terms of their debate. Lincoln and Douglas had seven debates of the following format: First speaker talked for 60 minutes, the second speaker talked for 90 minutes and the first speaker had a 30 minute rebuttal. Sadly, neither one of our candidates could handle this sort of format: 60–90 minutes of uninterrupted speaking (without teleprompters) would reveal just how ill-prepared either of them are to be our next president. But in this particular case Trump is right — the debates are rigged (to suggest otherwise is just stupid).