Greg Sargent interviewed Stephanopoulos today and unsurprisingly Stephanopoulos defended himself. On the subject of the substanceless first fifty-two minutes, he said the following.
“We decided to focus at the top on the issues that had been at the center of the debate since the last debate. Everything we brought up in that front section had not come up since the last debate. And they all focused on the same theme — which candidate would be a stronger Democratic candidate in November.”
“This is the core question for the campaigns, and a lot of Democratic voters right now. That’s why we decided to lead with it.”
Asked why we should presume that electability, rather than issues, was the dominant concern of many Dems right now, Stephanopoulos argued that it was a frequent topic of discussion on the campaign trail.
“People also take into account…how candidates handle controversy,” he said. “That’s what campaigns are about, as well.”
In a way, his answer shows just how deeply he bought into the Clinton campaign’s argument. She is only arguing about electability at this point, even as she goes through the motions on the campaign trail giving her usual speeches. Obama studiously avoids all talk of delegates, The Math, and Clinton’s electability. But if ABC News wanted to focus on electability they should have been fair and balanced and asked Clinton how she could possibly win a national election after alienating the entire black community by destroying Obama’s reputation through right-wing attacks and wresting away the nomination despite having less pledged delegates.
I don’t disagree that electability is an important consideration in the Democratic campaign. ABC News would have been justified if they had asked a question on the topic to each candidate. But they didn’t limit themselves to one question. They spent a full fifty minutes on the topic, and they did not adequately question Clinton’s vulnerabilities (high negatives, trustworthiness, and no clear path to the nomination). One question about Tuzla is insufficient balance to four electability questions for Barack.
To my mind, it would have been justifiable for ABC News to lay out the series of unlikely things that would have to take place for Clinton to win the nomination, point out the inevitable and easily foreseeable carnage to the Democratic coalition that would result from those things, and ask her point blank, “Why, besides vanity, are you still in the race?”
Of course, that would have caused a huge outcry. Having decided to host a debate, ABC News should have found out what matters to Pennsylvanians and focused on that. I am sure the local ABC affiliate would have done a much better job specifically because they are tuned in to the electorate. Pennsylvanians are interested in which candidate is more electable and that could have been one question that they asked. But the loudest applause lines I hear at Obama rallies are about ending the war in Iraq, providing universal health care, and reducing the cost of higher education. Health Care and education didn’t even come up last night.
There really is no defense for the debate moderation last night. But given the national response, ABC News already knows that.
