Explaining The Glut Of Debates

Whether he's right or not, Rick Perry has a point -- there are a ton of debates planned this year. There's a reason for that: An internal agreement within the Republican National Committee means the party is using some sanctioned debates as an incentive for good behavior, and others as a tool to mollify members who might otherwise cause trouble.

Back in March, the RNC announced it had formed a committee that would authorize presidential debates. RNC chairman Reince Priebus said the committee would help the party streamline the nominating process, and party strategists hoped it would provide guidance and allow the campaigns time to hit the road. Priebus appointed Indiana national committeeman Jim Bopp, who heads a bloc of conservatives within the RNC, to lead the debate committee.

A side note: Bopp was a big-time opponent of then-RNC chairman Michael Steele. He endorsed Priebus for RNC chairman about three weeks before Priebus won the job.

A parallel debate over how to handle the problem of front-loaded nominating contests has gone on within the RNC for decades. When Arizona and Michigan began threatening to move their nominating contests ahead of the approved "window," which opens March 6, the RNC had a few carrots (like, say, debates) and a few sticks (cutting the size of a state's convention delegation) at the ready.

Some states got the stick. Florida's delegation will be halved if they hold their contest on January 31, as planned. But although the RNC swears it was a coincidence, it sure looks like they used the debate carrot to hold at least one state at bay. It was hard not to notice that Arizona was awarded a sanctioned debate right around the time the Copper State was contemplating moving their primary to late February.

(Maybe it was a coincidence; Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer announced the debate in a press release in which she also said [pdf] she wouldn't announce the date of the state's primary. Ultimately, Brewer went ahead with a plan to hold the primary on February 28, violating RNC rules even after getting her debate.)

Bopp's biggest ally on the RNC is Solomon Yue, one of Oregon's three representatives on the national committee (Yue also serves on the debate panel). So, although Portland is known as one of the more liberal cities in the country, it's not surprising that the state also got its own sanctioned debate. That event is scheduled for Monday, March 19, to be broadcast by a motley media crew made up of Oregon Public Broadcasting, PBS, NPR and the Washington Times.

Perry's team doesn't want their candidate to appear in a venue in which he's clearly weaker than his main rivals. Whether he's right to skip debates aside, there are more debates scheduled this year than there have been in years past -- and the RNC is behind the increase.

Subscribers can keep track of every debate, whether they'll happen or not, with Hotline's handy debate calendar.

An earlier article re the RNC and the 2012 Debates:

2012ers balk at RNC debate plan
By: Jonathan Martin - Politico
April 3, 2011 05:37 PM EDT

Representatives of three potential GOP presidential candidates expressed concerns this weekend about the Republican National Committee’s proposal to sanction a series of monthly primary debates.

The aides said the plan - under which the RNC would determine the format and moderators for each of their approved forums - would take too much power out of the hands of the candidates and likely add more debates to a calendar already stocked with them.

“This is a matter that should be left to the campaigns,” said a staffer to one likely hopeful. “The RNC should be focused on Democrats and Obama. The ownership over this belongs to the campaigns. We can work with one another to come to an agreement.”

An adviser to a second probable candidate called the party’s proposal “well-intentioned” but “misguided.”

“It will not rectify the concerns campaigns have expressed over the debate process as it will increase the number of debates,” said the adviser. “It seems like there are easier ways to help the RNC with its financial condition.”

A representative of a third campaign added: “It would contradict the idea of having less debates.

Asked about the concerns, RNC communications director Sean Spicer indicated that the committee welcomed the response and wanted to work with the campaigns.

“The reason we’re going through this process is to get our candidates’ feedback on what would make for the most successful outcome of the primary season,” said Spicer.

As part of their plan — outlined in a one-page memo sent to the campaigns Friday night by RNC debate committee chair James Bopp, an Indiana committeeman — the debt-racked party would require each of the candidates who agree to participate in the sanctioned debates to raise money for the RNC at fundraisers held in conjunction with the forums.

The proposal also suggested that each of those candidates who participate in the debates would have access to the party’s in-house lists of voters and donors. After an adviser to one candidate balked at such a deal, Spicer clarified that all eligible GOP hopefuls would have access to their lists.

But that the list-swap was even included in the plan was another sore point for the campaigns, who indicated that the idea never came up in the original meeting all the candidate representatives had last month to first discuss debates.

“The exchange was never talked about,” grumbled one candidate adviser.

Various news organizations, including POLITICO, are planning to hold GOP presidential primary debates over the coming months.

Just elected in January, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus is facing what amounts to the first intra-Republican squabble of his administration, trying to balance the wishes of the likely GOP White House hopefuls concerned about a glut of debate invitations with those of committee hard-liners like Bopp who want to use those concerns to pick a broader fight with news organizations over who has control over the quadrennial forums.

After Spicer first softened Bopp’s proposal Friday, indicating that it was more an attempt to get “feedback” than a hard-and-fast plan that the candidates must sign off on, the conservative Hoosier sent a defensive follow-up email Saturday to the potential candidates. In it, he recounted the concerns they had expressed in individual conversations and detailed how his committee was working to address them.

“The proposed RNC role was for the RNC to become involved in the Presidential debates in order to promote having fewer debates, starting later, with a more comfortable frequency and with a more substantive and candidate-friendly format,” wrote Bopp, in a message obtained by POLITICO. “All but one of the [campaigns] endorsed, most enthusiastically, this proposed role for the RNC.”

He added that most of the campaigns had indicated “the format of prior debates as the ‘biggest problem,’” noting that: “the [campaigns] were concerned that prior debates were liberal-media-driven to the determent of the candidates.”

“They agreed that the way to help fix this was by the RNC to control who the moderators of the debates are and for the RNC to utilize conservative public-policy experts, rather than media personalities, as moderators,” Bopp wrote. “The Proposal has the RNC determining the format and moderators for the debates.”

Bopp’s ideas for moderators: former Bush Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, according to a source who attended the initial meeting at the RNC last month in which the debates were first discussed.

Sighing about the suggestion, the source said: “Presidential campaigns are filled with adults, and we can take care of ourselves.”

Bopp also revealed in his email Saturday that the candidates had little appetite to start debating next month, when Fox News and the South Carolina GOP are slated to hold a forum.

“All but one of the potential Presidential candidates interviewed felt that May was too early,” he wrote. “In fact,

none of the 9 potential candidates had agree to any of the May debates at the time they were interviewed. Only one of them expressed an intention to agree to a May debate. The most frequently mentioned start date was August.”

In his email Saturday, Bopp suggested that POLITICO’s report of his committee’s plan amounted to frustration by the media that news outlets would no longer control presidential debates.

“Finally, as our interviews and Proposal have unfortunately been leaked to the media, we have witnessed that our proposed changes have made some in the media uncomfortable, which is understandable,” he wrote.

“We are taking away the power of the mainstream media to vet our candidates and, thereby, help determine our nominee. However, we have also received overwhelming support from our grassroots because they understand that the first step to control our own destiny is to make sure these debates are driven by the party and its grassroots.”

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=F7CF1920-DB5E-44EE-BA1E-37CC09EE8C3F

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