If Democrats Replace Biden, America Deserves Three Presidential Debates
[Trivia: What are the two main diseases caused by the Varicella Zoster virus?]
As I write this, it’s unknown what will happen with the Democratic nomination process and, down the line, the 2024 POTUS election. President Biden has, for his part, doubled down on this idea that he isn’t going anywhere. In so many words, “If the Lord Almighty comes down and tells me [to bow out], I might do that.” On the other hand, prediction markets suggest that he has roughly a 62% chance of ultimately being the Democrats’ nominee, to say nothing of his chances of winning in November.
If Biden, by (Vaudevillian) hook or by crook, winds up out of the race in advance of Election Day Season (remember that voting will kick off in Pennsylvania, 50 days before Election Day), then the Presidential Debates should proceed as regularly scheduled. Remember that the Democratic and Republican candidates squaring off as early as June, as Trump and Biden did two weeks ago, has never happened before—not even close. The two debates in 2020 took place on September 29 and October 15.
This time around, the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) (not to be confused with COPD) had scheduled debates to take place between September 16 and October 9. That was until Biden’s team decided to disregard that structure and instead insist on debating Trump only twice, incredibly early, on friendly networks. (Even if, as it turns out, the two moderators did a fair job for Debate #1.)
There is plenty of time, should the party nominate anyone else, for that nominee to introduce him or herself to the American public as the Democratic nominee for President and to square off against his or her chief opponent, Donald Trump, on the debate stage. The American people deserve that and it is eminently feasible—we are still two and a half months away from when the first debate was supposed to take place.
And while events like this require planning, the CPD is set up to coordinate exactly this kind of event. They do so routinely, here and in forty other countries. They will be able to find three college auditoriums somewhere in America that can accommodate debates between candidates to become the next leader of the free world.
Now, if Democrats do replace Biden, maybe they take the initiative and insist on having all three debates. Perhaps they think Biden’s replacement will so outshine the old man that it’s fully in their interest to field as much stage combat as possible. Maybe if they replace him, this all falls right into place.
Regardless, from a standpoint of having predictable norms, this expectation should be set. It’s obnoxious that Biden blew up the decades-long debate norm in the first place: these focal points of cooperation shouldn’t themselves be up for debate every go-round, and it’s a real power trip that Biden’s team acted this way. Analogously, your Fantasy Football League shouldn’t have to argue every single fall about whether you use Kickers just based on whether the league’s commissioner successfully drafted Justin Tucker or not.
So we should set the expectation now. And for their part, the left-at-the-altar CPD seem aware that things may yet change. On June 24, they publicly released the already-secured debate venues from their contracts, but also “noted that the CPD stands ready to sponsor 2024 debates should circumstances change.”
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Answer: Chicken pox and Shingles.