CNN is the host network for the July Democratic debates. And today, they released the “rules” that will apply to the July debates. If the rules are consistently applied and actually enforced, things could get interesting.
First, CNN will use a series of flashing lights (somewhat similar to what appellate courts use at oral arguments) to let candidates know when they are almost out of time. My question is whether the cameras will show when the light turns red to make it clear who is going over the limit and whether the moderators will enforce the limits.
Second, candidates who “consistently” interrupt other candidates will supposedly have time deducted from them. Which raises two questions. First, how many interruptions before time is deducted? Second, how is time being allocated to the candidates — if there is not a “total” amount of time that each candidate is supposed to get and those rules are actually enforced, a deduction is meaningless.
Third, CNN will be posting the moderator’s question in the banner under the candidates during the answers. Given that part of the art of political debates is answering the question that you wanted the moderator to ask rather than the actual question, will voters take note of who is evading the question and look less favorably on those candidates?
Fourth, if a candidate is attacked by name, he/she will get 30 seconds to respond to the attack. What “polite” ways will the candidates use to attack each other without naming names. I can easily see a candidate referring to past votes that — at least in the eyes of some in hindsight — were wrong without naming names. Something along the lines of, “To achieve goal x, we need to do change Y. And the candidates who voted for Y in the past is not a candidate who can lead us forward.” Even though it is clear to political junkies which candidate such a line would be attacking (hint: in most cases, it will be Vice-President Biden), the candidate making the statement would not be referring to other candidates by name — leaving it up to the post-debate spin doctors to make it clear who was being attacked.
While the basic rules are 60 seconds to answer a question with 30 seconds for responses by other candidates followed by a 30 second rebuttal by the original candidate, the news release from CNN do not make it clear if each candidate will have the opportunity to respond to the question or if the moderators will choose which candidate(s) get to respond. And will candidates get an equal number of questions directed to them and an equal number of responses. We know from past debates that — in multi-candidate debates — the speaking time for the candidates are rarely even close to equal.
One basic lesson of past campaigns is that, while everyone claims to be striving for neutral rules, there are no such thing as neutral rules. Rules help define the structure — whether of a debate or of an election. And, by definition certain structures tend to benefit other candidates more than others, It will be interesting to see whether any candidate demonstrates the ability to successfully navigate these rules in a way that improves their position in the 2020 race. And this debate is key because it is the last chance to break out of the “pack” before the cut-off for the fall debates in which candidates will have to poll over 2% in July and August to make the fall debates. If a lesser known candidate does not make an impression in the CNN debates, they will probably be staging “alternative” events during the fall debates if they are even running by that date.
