The Commission on Presidential Debates? schedule for the 2008 general-election campaign has promoters of recovering New Orleans in a snit because their Katrina-tormented city was not selected.
But a presidential debate is not intended to be a civic booster. And it was questionable from the start that a city still recovering from such a huge natural disaster could meet the logistical demands of an influx of the national news media.
In any event, the Commission ? a nonpartisan group co-chaired by former Republican and Democratic national chairmen ? bypassed America?s once-favorite town for eating and other revelry in favor of Oxford, Miss., Nashville, Tenn., St. Louis and Hempstead, N.Y. All are towns offering good nonpartisan college sites.
In political circles, much attention often is paid to where the debates are held, but the location seldom has anything to do with their substance or outcome. Wherever the debates are conducted, it?s likely the federal response to Katrina will come up.
More significant are the commission?s decisions on format ? whether there will be panel of political journalists or a single moderator, whether he or she will be a knowledgeable television celebrity and whether voters will participate in the questioning.
As in 2004, there will be three debates involving presidential candidates and one by their running mates. The Commission has decided again to dispense with a panel and have one individual with experience in television and national news ? probably a different one for each debate ? posing the questions.
The second presidential debate, scheduled for small Belmont University in Nashville, will use the town-hall format, with members of the audience undecided on their choice asking some of the questions, and possibly voters posting queries from the Internet.
But according to Commission sources, it?s unlikely that some of the showboat wrinkles used in some of the pre-primary debates, especially those run by commercial news organizations, will be included, such as questions via You Tube or other videos. One early video showing an animated snowman asking about climate change triggered complaints on grounds it was too flippant.
Of particular disfavor among some on the Commission was the most recent debate in Las Vegas run by CNN, in which the moderatorlet the competition among Sen. Hillary Clinton and her chief critics dominate, to the exclusion of other candidates. Spotlighting CNN reporters to introduce voter questioners also drew criticism.
The pre-primary debates, which have attracted a small fraction of the viewers compared to the 36-million-plus who have watched general-election debates, have served as laboratories for experimentation on format and content. They have helped to introduce the candidates at a time most voters are not yet paying serious attention. But the debates of the fall of 2008 will carry much higher stakes.
No doubt there will be, as in the past, negotiation and wrangling over details between the campaigns ? or among them if a third-party candidate should generate enough strength to gain admittance. But the general-election debates now have reached such institutional stature that it seems impossible that the major party nominees might decline to participate. The fact that no incumbent president is running should ensure their presence.
Although some interesting questions have been posed from Internet users, many have been flighty, and some downright ridiculous and staged. The recent query from a pre-selected voter to Clinton ? whether she prefers pearls or diamonds for her debate appearances ? was beneath the serious purpose of seeking information for assessment by an informed electorate.
The quadrennial presidential debates provide plenty of high drama and significance without such capers that diminish the critical business of nominees courting votes for the highest office in the land.
The fact that the Commission is headed by two former party chairmen, Republican Frank Fahrenkopf and Democrat Paul Kirk, has drawn criticism from past third-party candidate Ralph Nader, who was excluded from past debates and sued, unsuccessfully, for inclusion. Sponsorship by private corporations also has come under fire.
Butthe Commission generally has won acceptance for fairness and efficiency and has done much to bring credibility to what is now indisputably a political institution.
