It's a Mistake

Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez (below), having seen his undistinguished predecessor Debbie Wasserman Schultz rig the 2016 Democratic presidential abates in favor of a flawed candidate who was destined to lose, came up with a different formula for the 2020 Democratic presidential debates to give everyone running for the nomination an equal chance to particiapte in them.  He was not going to make the same mistake that Debbie made by getting behind a candidate in advance or setting up a debate format that would benefit front-runners.  And he didn't.  But he made a new mistake.  

Perez set up a system in which candidates had to get X percentage points in polls and Y individual donors to take part in debates, with the figures starting at low numbers for qualifying for the first debate in June 2019 and gradually increasing with each passing month.  The idea was to winnow the field over time, but it didn't winnow it by much - of the 24 candidates who started out, eleven have withdrawn, but there are still fifteen contenders, including two - Deval Patrick and Michael Bloomberg - who have entered late.  (For the record, that means there have been 26 Democratic presidential candidates, one for every man to occupy the Presidency from 1789 to 1913.)  And the eleven candidates who have withdrawn from the campaign are the lesser-known contestants that Perez's system was supposedly intended to help.  The front-runners - Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders - have benefited in the polls and with individual donors thanks in no small part to their name recognition.  As a new name, only Pete Buttigieg has benefited from Perez's rules.

Also, the rules have had the unintended consequence of knocking black and Hispanic contenders out of the debates, making the field of candidates who qualify for them more overwhelmingly white than Iowa and New Hampshire themselves.  But it's also been unfair to white guys - namely, white guys like Michael Bennet, whose soft-spoken, pragmatic approach would provide a stark and refreshing contrast to Trump, and Steve Bullock, who knows how to win as a Democrat in a Republican state.   Bennet is still in the "race" while Bullock has dropped out, and Bennet can't get into the debates any more than Cory Booker can. 

At least the December debate, with its smaller field, allowed for some substantive discussion on the issues - Warren's underhanded attack on Buttigieg notwithstanding - and Biden proved himself to be a skilled debater in a milieu where he doesn't have to respond in a thirty-second sound bite and can take his time to express himself.  But the Democrats are getting themselves bogged down in process and fairness issues when they should be talking even more about issues like climate change and health care - not just in the presidential debates but in the media and on the campaign trail.  This nonsense all stems from Perez's flawed set of rules.  Unless the Democrats can put all of that behind them and concentrate on the need to get Trump voted out of office, they will lose everything in 2020 and may not be around for 2022 or 2024.

Please don't make me revive my #DemsWhigOut hashtag again!