Are Political Debates Necessary?

Lincoln and Douglas

Longtime Hartford Courant reporter Chris Keating pops the question in a front page, above the fold story: “Where are the debates?” and he notes, what all of us always knew, that long-term incumbent politicians tend to be debate-shy because – my opinion, not Keating’s – they regard continuance in office as an affirmation that successful incumbents need not present themselves to voter consideration during elections.

 

Longtime State Democratic Party chairwoman Nancy DiNardo says it without blushing: “Himes, DeLauro, Larson, and Courtney, too, [multi-term Democrats] tend to be strong candidates. I would think the Republicans have a hard time getting candidates who really want to run. … I have no doubts that whoever they debate that they would be able to beat them. Why, and this is just my opinion, give them any publicity so that people can see them? I don’t see the need for doing that.”

 

Also, Democrat incumbents do not wish to appear on stage with “Republican conspiracy theorists,” DiNardo said.

 

DiNardo did not mention that many “successful” camera-shy Democrat incumbents operate in districts that fair-minded political reporters and commentators regard as gerrymandered; that is, politically rigged in such a way that Republicans are far less likely than Democrats to win office.

 

Larson’s 1^st District and DeLauro’s 3rd District are prime examples of successful gerrymandering. Of course, Democrat incumbents in “safe” districts are camera-shy only during brief periods when they might possibly be forced to defend their records in office by debating opposition party candidates.  Otherwise, like US Senator Dick Blumenthal -- about whom it has been said there is no safe place between a politically rutting Blumenthal and a television camera – winning Democrat incumbents are as ubiquitous as fake primary ballots in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

 

Naturally, Connecticut Republican Party Chairman Ben Proto takes issue with the representations made by DiNardo: “Chris Murphy’s finally agreed to a debate on October 30,” he said. “Whoop-de-doo. Six days before the election. Who cares? … Michael Goldstein can’t get Jim Himes to even acknowledge that he is running or do anything. Rosa DeLauro is not debating Mike Massey. John Larson is not. Of their entire federal team, I think the only ones who are debating are Joe Courtney and Jahana.”

 

Keating notes of US Representative Chris Murphy: “In the U.S. Senate race, only one debate is scheduled on WTNH, Channel 8, on Oct. 30, six days before the election rematch between U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy and Republican challenger Matthew Corey. With a major fundraising advantage, Murphy has been broadcasting the same commercial constantly on multiple news programs that shows him during his annual walk across Connecticut. With little resources, Corey has been unable to mount a similar media campaign.”

 

Why so shy, if it is self-evident that multi-term Democrats cannot lose office when confronted publicaly by loser Republicans in “debates that – shall we be honest? -- are not debates at all, but rather extended press availabilities often managed by media personalities who have shown themselves to be friendly to reigning incumbent Democrats?

 

The national media, multiple reliable bias studies have shown, favors Democrats by disproportionate numbers. “Syracuse’s Newhouse School of Public Communications polled 1,600 U.S. journalists in early 2022. Of those polled, only 3.4% were affiliated with Republicans, compared to 36.4% Democrats, 51.7% Independents, and 8.5% other,” according to All Sides.

 

It is of course possible for reporters and commentators to rise above their own prejudices and personal ambitions.  But this is not possible in a media environment in which reporters and commentators do not adopt an adversarial posture between themselves and the party in power. In Connecticut, there is little question that in our General Assembly, Democrats enjoy a nearly veto-proof majority. All the state’s constitutional offices are occupied by Democrats. The Governorship was last in Republican hands in 2011 before Jodi Rell called it quits and moved from Brookfield to Florida – not purely, one supposes, to escape Connecticut’s onerous taxes. The Yankee Institute recently printed a list of Connecticut’s overbearing taxes and fees. Not enough voters will see the chart listing the state’s 344 sources of revenue or the Yankee chart showing the state’s precipitous increases in revenue from 1970-2021.  Those who do may wish to follow the last Republican governor to Florida, where both taxes and hurricanes are manageable.

 

This we know for certain: Historically, the relationship between the state and individuals is an inverse one. The richer the state the poorer the people; the more powerful the state, the weaker the people. There is a political solution that would redress the imbalance, but that solution involves spending cuts, and politicians, too free in petting favored political groups for purposes of vote harvesting, are loathed to trim their own power and leave people the liberty and means of addressing their own financial needs.  A cleansing political revolution, provided it is directed by power breakers who value personal liberty, will over time reverse this crippling relationship.

 

It cannot happen soon enough.

 

In Illinois on January 27, 1838, Abraham Lincoln addressed Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield in a warning speech titled "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions." This is what he said: “Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step across the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reaches us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.”