During Nebraska’s gubernatorial race in 2022, I voted for Brett Lindstrom. And a deciding factor in my decision was that he, unlike front-runner Jim Pillen, was willing to engage in debates.
I got to see him on stage more than once debating with Charles Herbster, Theresa Thibodeau, and a handful of other candidates on why he should have my support. And while still like Jim Pillen, I felt his decision not debate either in the primary or in the general election was a mistake. Nevertheless, he won the election by a wide margin. This wasn’t a surprise, since Nebraska is largely a Republican state, but I noticed this was part of a trend across the country.
In the governor’s race in Arizona, for example, Katie Hobbs refused to debate Kari Lake, and she still won. Josh Shapiro refused to debate Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, and he also won. This year in Nebraska, Deb Fischer refused to debate her opponent, Dan Osborn. She also won. Pete Ricketts wouldn’t debate either Preston Love Jr. or his Republican primary challenger, John Glen Weaver. Ricketts won as well.
There doesn’t seem to be any political penalty for refusing to debate. This bother me, as I believed it was important for candidates to put themselves in front of voters and be challenged on their ideas. They should have to lay out their policy proposals and explain them in a forum where they could be asked tough questions.
And then something changed my mind.
Back in September, Donald Trump had a contentious debate with Kamala Harris. It actually turned out to be a three-on-one ambush, with two moderators fact-checking him while allowing lies from his opponent to pass by unchecked. I noticed that every answer had to fit inside a one- or two-minute window — soundbites that the candidates would often have memorized, sometimes having nothing to do with the questions asked. (“I grew up in a middle-class household…”) In this format, I didn’t learn anything about either candidate, and I’m fairly sure it didn’t change the minds of anyone who watched.
What I suspect may have changed some minds, however, was a three-hour conversation between Donald Trump and Joe Rogan. Trump sat down and chatted casually with Rogan about policy and his plans as President, as well as topics like wrestling, the UFC, and life on Mars. And while it was a friendly interview, it’s impossible to be anything other than authentic in such a setting. No pre-scripted soundbites could fill a three-hour, free-flowing conversation. It did a lot more to display who Donald Trump was and what he wanted to do as President than an antagonistic “debate” with responses limited to one or two minutes at a time.
What’s amazing is that this format is nothing new in American politics. The renowned debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in 1858 were a lot more like the long-form podcasts we listen to today. In fact, their format was also three hours long — with a 60-minute opening statement by one candidate, a 90-minute response by the other candidate, and then a 30-minute rebuttal by the first candidate.
Perhaps if our Presidential debates were to return to their 19th century roots, they would be less of the soundbite smackdowns that we’ve been accustomed to, and more of an actual conversation, one in which the candidates are forced to be authentic — because it’s impossible to be anything else.
