Biden won’t participate in nonpartisan commission's fall debates but proposes 2 with Trump earlier
apnews.com
President Joe Biden says he won't participate in fall presidential debates sponsored by the nonpartisan commission that's organized them for more than three decades and instead proposes two debates with former President Donald Trump earlier in the year.

Biden’s campaign proposed that the first debate between the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees be held in late June and the second in September before early voting begins. Trump responded to the letter in an interview with Fox News digital, calling the proposed dates “fully acceptable to me” and joked about providing his own transportation.

  • dhork@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    31·
    7 months ago

    To be fair, though, three debates is excessive this time around. We know where these people stand. The debates are really a chance to assess their mental fitness, and two will be fine for that.

    The non-partisan commission shot itself in the foot by not taking early voting into account in its scheduling. If we are going to have debates, it makes no sense to schedule them after voting starts in some states.

    • logicbomb@lemmy.world
      13·
      7 months ago

      More background on this “non-partisan” commission.

      The CPD was established in 1987 by the chairmen of the Democratic and Republican Parties to “take control of the presidential debates”. The commission was staffed by members from the two parties and chaired by the heads of the Democratic and Republican parties, Paul G. Kirk and Frank Fahrenkopf. At a 1987 press conference announcing the commission’s creation, Fahrenkopf said that the commission was not likely to include third-party candidates in debates, and Kirk said he personally believed they should be excluded from the debates.

      It is not non-partisan. It is bipartisan. That’s an important difference. Saying that it’s nonpartisan is misinformation.

      Third parties have often criticized exclusion of their candidates from debates, due to the CPD’s rule (established in 2000) that candidates must garner at least 15% support across five national polls to be invited to the national debates. The last candidate from outside the two major parties to participate in a CPD-sponsored debate was Ross Perot, who polled sufficiently high in his 1992 presidential campaign to debate George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton in all three debates; Perot’s running mate, James Stockdale, also participated in the vice presidential debate. When Perot ran again in 1996, the CPD declined to invite him to the debates, finding that the Reform Party candidate had no “realistic chance to win” the election.

      So, it’s an organization run by the two major parties that explicitly tries to keep third parties from participating in the debates.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      7 months ago

      Oh ok…

      So let’s put the parties in charge.

      Because Republicans aren’t a complete shit show and the Dems didn’t just schedule their convention so late that Biden won’t make the deadline to get on the ballot in every state…

      But I’d love a source for the non-partisian debates being scheduled after early voting starts.

      I’ve never heard anything about that.

      • elliot_crane@lemmy.world
        14·
        7 months ago

        But I’d love a source for the non-partisian debates being scheduled after early voting starts.

        I’ve never heard anything about that.

        The article itself mentions that both campaigns have an issue with the debate commission scheduling after early voting. But let’s assume the AP is not a credible source and didn’t fact check this.

        How long before the election does early voting begin? Looks like it’s 50 days in some instances:

        Early in-person voting may begin as early as 50 days before the election … The average start date is 27 days before the election.

        https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/early-in-person-voting

        So let’s look at how well the commission did in 2020. Election Day was Nov. 3, 2020; 50 days prior was Sept. 14, 2020 and 27 days prior was Oct. 7, 2020.

        Based on the schedule here: https://www.debates.org/debate-history/2020-debates/ there were three debates:

        • Sept. 29, 2020: Biden v. Trump
        • Oct. 7, 2020: Harris v. Pence
        • Oct. 22, 2020: Biden v. Trump

        So, yeah, not a single one of those dates is before the absolute start of early voting, and two of them are on or after the average start.

        Seems like a valid and factual complaint to me.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          7 months ago

          But you’re acting like the nonpartisan commission picked the dates with no input from the parties…

          That people who vote day 1 of early voting aren’t sure of who they should vote for…

          And that the parties should be in charge of it, despite the Dems deciding to not declare their candidate till after the deadline to get on some states ballots?

          The ones that demanded a state violate their state law to move a primary, and when they wouldn’t removed all their delegates…

          You didn’t prove anything about the “late” debates being the commissions decision, or why we should give control to an organization thats clearly terrible about scheduling …

          • elliot_crane@lemmy.world
            9·
            7 months ago

            I didn’t set out to prove anything or argue any point other than the complaint about the debates being scheduled after early voting starts are rooted in fact.

            In fact, the only thing I really did was provide relevant sources to indicate that, yes, the debate commission has a history of scheduling at times after early voting starts.

            • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              7 months ago

              But giving control to the parties isnt an improvement…

              They can’t even schedule their own events to make sure their candidate gets on the ballot.

              • Habahnow@sh.itjust.works
                5·
                7 months ago

                In this case, yes it is an improvement, we get 2 debates before early voting is a huge improvement over only 1. Yes, long term I agree with you that I’d rather a 3rd party host the events, but right now for this election it seems they need to get their crap together.

                • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  2·
                  7 months ago

                  How many people do you think vote early but would be swayed by a debate?

                  If someone is voting Biden or trump during early voting, nothing is changing that.

                  The main benefit (at least for Dems) for debates is convincing possible voters to vote.

                  And again, it’s not like the nonpartisan committee dictates when the debates are, and I’m pretty sure the ones Biden and trump skipped was the first wasn’t it?

                  Like, I can’t help but think of the trump voters that rationalize voting trump because politics isn’t perfect. They’re not wrong at identifying a problem, but their solution just makes things worse.

              • elliot_crane@lemmy.world
                2·
                7 months ago

                Biden and Trump both accepted an invitation to debate from CNN and another from ABC, both within hours of this AP story going live. While you’ve got some valid points here regarding incompetence and mismanagement we’ve seen from the major parties of late, in this particular instance it seems like it worked out.

                I’d also like to point out once again that my original comment was not trying to argue whether or not this was a good thing, I was providing a source showing that the debate commission has a long history of scheduling debates after the start of early voting. You even asked for a source on that, hence my reply.

    • ZapBeebz_@lemmy.world
      5·
      7 months ago

      There is literally nothing trump could say or do that will make his supporters question his mental fitness. All these will do is give them the chance to rip on Biden for absolutely anything he does. Because they don’t care what’s actually going on, they just want to cut together clips and then claim Biden is somehow more senile than Trump

      • Habahnow@sh.itjust.works
        6·
        7 months ago

        The debates are more for on the fence voters. Some people have slowly started to leave the MAGA bubble as the lies stack up high, and they continue to get annoyed with Trump. For people on the fence in voting for Biden, this is an opportunity to see that he’s not a senile old man as portrayed by the right.