Defining debates downward
∙
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is down on debates. Again.
“These debates are not what they used to be,” he said Thursday in a visit to the Syracuse Post Standard’s editorial board, just hours before the other gubernatorial candidates gathered at the College of Saint Rose for a 90-minute debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters.
You can watch that debate online; it was a substantive discussion that gave Republican Marc Molinaro, Green candidate Howie Hawkins, Libertarian Larry Sharpe and Stephanie Miner of the Serve America Movement a proper forum to lay out their respective platforms. (In the interests of full disclosure, I was asked to serve on the panel of questioners but had to beg off due to a previously scheduled congressional debate the same night.)
Cuomo said in Syracuse that he prefers taking part in “teletown halls,” in which candidates take calls from the public — or people claiming to be members of the public — that can be prescreened by his flunkies to weed out pain-in-the-keister subjects. His administration has over recent years escalated its use of a similar technique for conference calls with reporters; the governor has largely curtailed holding press conferences at the Capitol, a large building with many rooms capable of holding such gatherings.
Warming to the subject in Syracuse, Cuomo denounced the more traditional debate format in much the same way that Johnny Rotten used to deride corporate rock ’n’ roll: “People have such suspicion about these pre-orchestrated situations,” Cuomo said of those squaresville debates in which reporters wellversed on the issues ask questions the candidates might not be expecting. “They want to ask their own questions. My campaign has been about touching as many people as I can, communicating directly.”
This episode of “Touched By a Cuomo” was a rerun of his 2014 kvetch that debates sometimes do “a disservice to democracy” — a likely reference to 2010’s clownish seven-candidate gubernatorial debate on Long Island that included Cuomo and his Republican opponent Carl Paladino, who got up in the middle of the debate to answer the call of nature. Also on the bill was Jimmy Mcmillan of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party, who came to the event dressed to play bass in a Prince cover band, and former procuress Kristin Davis.
This time around, Cuomo professed similar disappointment over the quality of the Oct. 23 CBS debate that was, is and shall be the only one-on-one debate between himself and his Republican opponent Marc Molinaro. That encounter, poorly moderated and staged like a roundtable discussion, quickly devolved into an I’m-rubber-you’re-glue imbroglio that generated precious
little edifying policy discussion.
Cuomo’s criticism, of course, was akin to a guy who douses a barn in kerosene and fills it with highway flares and oily rags, and then expresses regret when it burns to the ground. The governor pretty much ensured his encounter with Molinaro would be a mess by waiting until virtually the last minute to sign aboard, after ignoring earlier debate invitations from a host of organizations and media outlets that might have provided a less fast-food forum.
It’s been a lousy season for traditional debates, despite the yeoman work done by pros like Liz Benjamin of Spectrum News and Errol Louis of NY1, who took part in generally excellent forums with the major-party candidates for comptroller and attorney general. That pair was on deck to moderate an Oct. 21 matchup between U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and her Republican opponent Chele Farley, which Gillibrand pulled out of 50 hours before showtime rather than cross a “virtual picket line” planned by the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers, which is in a longstanding labor dispute with Spectrum/ny1’s parent, Charter Communications. (More disclosure: I was part of a brief last-ditch effort to revive the debate, a futile endeavor that impeded an otherwise lovely dinner with my wife and ended with Skidmore properly deciding not to proceed in the absence of a broadcast partner.)
IBEW’S dispute was a rather flexible impediment: The union did not protest several of Spectrum/ny1’s other debates, including a matchup between 19th Congressional District opponents Rep. John Faso and Democrat Antonio Delgado that took place two days after Gillibrand bowed out. But it did manage to reduce the number of stations that could pester Cuomo with a debate invitation he didn’t want to accept.
There must be a better way. On the federal level, there is the Commission on Presidential Debates, a wholly independent entity that takes it upon itself to organize presidential and vicepresidential debates, which it has done every four years since 1988. It would be worthwhile to see a similar organization formed on the state level, preferably before the 2020 election cycle revs up. Stock it with unimpeachable public figures and trusted journalists, bring in media partners and set uniform protocols. And if the politicians try to weasel out, call them on it.
The governor is correct to say that his debate with Molinaro with a mess. But suggesting that therefore all debates are worthless is like arguing that Randy Macho Man Savage and The Undertaker aren’t suitable ambassadors of the ancient sport of Greco-roman wrestling.