With Michigan and Ohio governors Rick Snyder and John Kasich thinking seriously about throwing their hats in a ring that already includes Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, I am beginning to feel a little left out. Why can’t Tom Corbett run, too?
Then there are Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. I wonder what’s wrong with Govs. Paul LePage of Maine and Rick Scott of Florida.
I mean, this is a lot of governors. And until three minutes ago it looked like Indiana governor Mike Pence might join the fun. Instead, he’s just hiring a Koch Brothers spokesman to be his Deputy Chief of Staff.
Then there is Rep. Peter King from the Irish Republican Army and half the Senate thinking about running, plus washed up pols and charlatans like Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump, and Ben Carson. A debate stage would have to be half the length of a football field and each candidate would only have time to give opening and closing statements.
You’d almost think that the Republicans had solved the Electoral College conundrum, but they haven’t.
The Republican National Committee has already sanctioned nine debates and may add three more. I’m not sure this will be sufficient.
A committee within the RNC and top staffers have been working for nearly a year on an effort to cut the number of debates roughly in half from the 20 held during the 2012 cycle. There have been high-level conversations between party leaders and executives at the nation’s broadcast and cable channels.
To give their push to control the debate process teeth, the party announced Friday that any candidate who participates in a debate that isn’t sanctioned by the RNC will not be allowed to participate in any more sanctioned debates. A question clouding the effort has been whether media organizations and cash-strapped candidates desperate for free airtime would go forward with unofficial debates, undercutting the whole process. But the stiffness of the penalty will probably deter such behavior.
Maybe they’ll have the regular sanctioned debates on the major networks and then a kind of kiddie’s table set of debates on the internet or something like that.
Whatever happens, they’ll expect us to pay attention to them and take them seriously. But no one can take this many candidates seriously.
