By exchanging views in his folksy manner with “my friends,” John McCain traveled a surprisingly easy path toward the Republican nomination this year.
His appearances, however, were no match for Sen. Barack Obama?s soaring rhetoric and dazzling charisma. Obama strategists looked forward to getting their man on the same stage with McCain in the fall debates that have become a presidential campaign institution.
But McCain and his strategists have come up with another, self-serving idea. They are proposing a series of 10 joint town meetings between now and the parties? national conventions.
Managers and political strategists of the major-party nominees havesought to shape and limit the debates to best suit their candidates. The result every four years has been a debate about the debates, on everything from dates and formats to the roles of moderators and panelists posing questions.
The first presidential debates of the modern era between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon in 1960 predated the commission. For the next three elections, incumbent presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Nixon declined to give their opponents an equal platform. But ever since 1976, voters have become accustomed to the debates, and dodging them could risk a heavy voter backlash.
Commission organizers, determined to continue their tradition of serious, information-laden exchanges of views on major issues, vow there will be no gimmicks. It?s a decision that may not please the Internet world, but should well serve the candidates and the voters.
Jules Witcover, a Baltimore Examiner columnist, is syndicated by Tribune Media Services.
