2. That is especially true early in the process when the stage is crowded & the candidates lack time to push back at the questions. One notorious example is the tendency to ask hand-raising questions ("Who here believes in evolution?")
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3. Clinton alumnus George Stephanopoulos asking a question about contraception in 2012 that no Republican was talking about, but that the Obama campaign very much wanted to talk about, was the height of letting the opposing team literally dictate the terms of debate.
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4. Democrats had something like this happen when Hillary was asked in 2008 about drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants, but at least that was a live intra-party debate triggered by an action by her own state's Democratic governor.
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5. Closer question: do voters want to see candidates, especially later in the process, pressed on vulnerabilities their primary opponents were afraid to raise? Think of Obama squirming at some of Charlie Gibson's questions about taxes & bitter clingers in the last 08 debate.
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6. A party definitely loses something by shutting out non-friendly moderators (and the Fox moderators the Democrats are booting are hardly Sean Hannity). But primary debates are for the primary voters. If only Republicans were as aggressive in defending that as Democrats.
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7. If the Democrats want their debates to be moderated entirely by left-wing activists and liberal pundits, go ahead. The whole point is to let the party's voters pick somebody they want to represent them. Fairness to the opposing party is no part of that.
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8. The only fairness issue that matters in picking a primary moderator is having somebody who isn't on the team of one *primary* candidate over another. That was where CNN had problems with Donna Brazile. So the focus should be on honest brokers within the party.
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9. Now, is it irresistibly amusing to poke some fun at Democrats for wanting their primary to be a walled garden free of tough questions from the outside? Sure. It punctures some of their favorite pretensions. But at the end of the day, that's what the general election is for.
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10. We ought to have stronger parties that control their own message & live & die by how that message sells in November. This is a step in that direction, one I'd be happy to see Republicans imitate.
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End of conversation
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"You mean banning contraception isn't the number one issue gripping the country?" - George Stephanopoulos
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