It Never ends....................... [Archive] - Debate Policy

Kathianne

10-19-2020, 05:46 PM

The moderators are only a symptom:

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2020/10/19/exposed-antonia-hernandez-the-democrats-soros-connected-debate-commissioner-n1069381

ELECTION 2020 (https://pjmedia.com/election)
Exposed: Antonia Hernandez, the Democrats' Soros-Connected Debate Commissioner

BY STEPHEN GREEN (https://pjmedia.com/columnist/stephen-green) OCT 19, 2020 3:45 PM ET

Antonia Hernandez, a board member for the Commission on Presidential Debates, has connections to both the Chinese Communist Party and a George Soros-funded group, according to a report released last week by the National Pulse.

This story slipped under most radars, probably due to all the soap-opera theatrics over the canceled presidential debate.
The Pulse’s Natalie Winters (https://thenationalpulse.com/exclusive/debate-commission-ccp/) wrote:

Hernandez’s position on the Board of Directors of the commission, which has selected a slew of anti-Trump moderators and pushed a debate via Zoom, is curious in light of her ties to the Biden-backing Chinese Communist Party and the Soros-backed Transition Integrity Project which calls for “street fights” to secure a Biden victory.

The highly partisan Transition Integrity Project was first exposed by The National Pulse in early August, after repeatedly making the false claim of non-partisanship, unchallenged by establishment media.

And:

Hernandez’s biography page on the Berggruen Institute site list her as part of the “Berggruen network,” a network which also lists five fellows at Chinese Communist Party-funded universities and two members of the pro-China lobby group and Confucius Institute-sponsoring Asia Society.

The Confucius Institute is a front organization for the CCP, spreading Beijing’s influence in foreign nations, particularly in universities.
Winters goes into quite some depth on Hernandez’s ties to Berggruen, and I highly recommend you read the whole thing.

Hernandez is a lawyer and longtime Democratic activist, who once served on the campaign for Ted Kennedy’s failed 1980 presidential bid.

Hernandez, though, is just the worst example of a presidential debate commission that is useless at best.

The other Commission members include:

• John C. Danforth. The old-school Missouri Republican is probably best described as a NeverTrumper after saying of POTUS: “There hasn’t been a more divisive person in national politics since George Wallace.”

• Charles Gibson of CBS News.

• John Griffen, managing director at Allen & Company, a privately-held boutique investment bank in New York.

• Richard Parsons, the 72-year-old former head of Citigroup. He’s a Republican, but said in 2018 that Trump is “ill-equipped to be the president of the United States” and isn’t “good for any America.”

• Yvonne Hao of Cove Hill Partners, another equity firm, this one in Boston.

• Jane Harman, former Democratic congresscritter from California.

• Olympia Snowe, former Republican senator whose photo you’ll find in the dictionary next to the definition of RINO.

• Newton N. Minow, a 94-year-old Democrat who first served under JFK.

• Notre Dame’s Father John Jenkins.

Putting it as simply as possible, the Commission features a few rabid Democratic operatives, an infotainment industry newsreader (but I repeat myself), some aged politicians of both parties, a couple of Wall Street types, and an ordained Catholic educator.

Not a single rabid Republican in there to try to even things out against the Democrats and Democrat-leaners.

“Commission on Presidential Debates” sounds so nice and neutral, but mostly it’s a creation of, by, and for the Swamp.

It’s important to remember that prior to 1988, the televised debates had been sponsored by the League of Women Voters. They withdrew after what amounted to a debate coup. A cabal of the George Bush and Mike Dukakis campaigns decided to usurp the old League, and formed the Commission on Presidential Debates.

The Commission isn’t really an organization devoted to putting on a great set of debates every four years. It’s an organization controlled by mostly members of the two major parties — and the debates are run for their benefit, not ours.

When one of the candidates is an outsider like Donald Trump is, the party’s interests and the candidate’s interests do not always mesh.
And that’s putting it lightly.

Even Bob Dole, no fan of Trump’s, tweeted that there isn’t a single Trump supporter on the Commission.

So to the many PJ Media readers who have asked in recent weeks why the GOP agrees to moderators like Chris Wallace, Steve Scully, etc., the reason is simple: The Commission on Presidential Debates works for the establishment wing of both parties, not for the candidates.

Maybe instead of canceling another debate, we need to cancel the Commission.

I happen to be a big fan of the presidential debates, and I suppose we have to hold the debates with the debate commission that we have.

At least for this presidential cycle, that is.

And that’s assuming Joe Biden shows up for the final debate later this week.

Did anyone believe his act that Trump’s super-COVID-cooties could penetrate not one but two plexiglass walls at a distance of over 10 feet and kill him instantly?

But other than as a sinecure for the well-connected and promoting party interests over the people’s interests, what does the Commission do that couldn’t be done better and by the candidates themselves?

Let me run an idea by you for 2024.

(I wrote about this briefly for Insanity Wrap last week, but have fleshed it out a bit.)

First, open up the debate so that it can be a real debate. No one can discuss or debate important issues in any meaningful way with one- and two-minute time restrictions. Let’s have fewer questions with at least 15 minutes of give-and-take for each question.

Let there be two moderators instead of one.

Moderator R asks questions of Candidate D.

Moderator D asks questions of Candidate R.

Candidate D gets to pick the moderator for Candidate R.

Candidate R gets to pick the moderator for Candidate D.

Make it a bit like jury selection. Give each candidate three vetoes against each other’s moderator picks. The candidate who uses the fewest vetoes gets to select the venue, too. If there’s a tie, flip a coin to see who chooses the location.

If either candidate balks after their third veto and refuses to debate, then the remaining candidate gets the exact same 90 minutes of national TV time, to be hosted by a moderator of his or her own choice.

The result would be a series of debates far fairer and more substantive than anything we’ve seen, maybe since Lincoln met Douglas.

And that, I’m sorry to say, is why it will never happen.