No matter who wins this election, there’s one wonderful thing we can say: debates will have shaped it more than anything else. The conventions mattered, and gaffes played a part, too. Ground game will have played a role that we can start to analyze tomorrow; as will have voter suppression. But, really, if there’s one thing that counted it was the debates: the purest form of civic engagement that we have and the one real shot that the public has to see the candidates naked, or at least to see them without prepared speeches, teleprompters, side-lighting, or artful elisions by the opposition.
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Heading into the fall, it seemed like the election might be remembered as the first one purchased by Super PACs: a billion-dollar auction for the White House. And, indeed, that money has been spent. But if Romney wins this one, it’ll be because he brought a cudgel to a debate in which Barack Obama brought a pillow. If Obama wins, it’ll be because he brought a knife to the following two debates and wielded it with skill. The dynamics of the race appeared settled until that first debate. Romney’s momentum was only stopped with the second and the third. There’s a reason people speak of the pre-Denver and post-Denver polls. Yes, each debate had its silly theatre; but each also included real arguments over real policy differences.
Debates drove the primary election cycle, too. From May of 2011 until March of 2012, the G.O.P. candidates debated twenty-seven times; each one was a moment for the country to check in and observe. We all watched Rick Perry commit harakiri in real time, before pundits or ad-makers could shape our view. We all saw both the brilliance and maniacism of Newt Gingrich. We saw Mitt Romney be Mitt Romney: never great, rarely awful, always prepared.
This democracy may have ninety-nine problems, but debates aren’t one. I’m already looking forward to May, 2015, just thirty months from now, when they’ll start up again.
Photograph by Chip Litherland.
