Given all the attention Herschel Walker is getting, it’s hard to focus much on Tim Walz, um, declining the opportunity to debate Scott Jensen on Twin Cities TV. But shortly after getting back to town last week I caught a local radio personality riffing on what a sad state it is when an incumbent governor won’t man-up and go face-to-face with his opponent.
And in very general terms I’d agree. In a healthy democracy it’s what every candidate should do. No matter how weak or delusional the competition.
But that “general” business implies a couple fundamentals. Like, for example, a close enough obligation to good faith and a foundational respect for facts. In other words, an opponent who may disagree with you on nuances, interpretations and timing of solutions to issues … as opposed to someone, a licensed physician in the case of Scott Jensen, who denies the impact of an international pandemic that has killed millions, who plays loose and cynical with the results of a free and fair election and who lately has been babbling incoherently about school children urinating in cat litter and identifying as semi-human “furries.”
To that, Walz has every good reason to roll his eyes and say, “Why bother?” His opponent, Dr. Jensen, is by every indication a clueless-to-shameless charlatan slinging every can of MAGA-world sludge against the walls in the reckless hope of sealing up the vote of the intellectually incompetent.
Jensen is, to put it bluntly, the embodiment of a bad faith candidate.
In the hardball political context, Walz sees Jensen as the classic opponent self-immolating so badly there’s no reason to concede the legitimacy of a meeting-of-equals like a televised debate. (Walz has agreed to radio debates and some out-state TV.) Add to that Jensen’s poll numbers and Walz has even less tactical reason to step out on the same stage with him.
Now, the calculation might be a bit different if there was assurance that debate moderators would frame Jensen’s positions on election denial, pandemic denial and kitty litter with the aggression they deserve. But you, I and Walz know that the operative standard for fair and equivalent Minnesota journalism is not only to treat all candidates as serious, good faith actors, but also avoid aggressive follow-ups, even when confronted with reckless nonsense.
Call it The Chuck Todd Syndrome. Ask a tough-sounding question. Let the candidate bloviate and … “leave it there.”
I of course am still of the mind that given the prevalence of The Big Lie as a fundamental base issue for modern Republicans, the first question any serious, fair-minded reporter should ask any candidate is: “Do you believe Joe Biden won the 2020 election freely and fairly?” To which any response other than, “Of course I do”, means the interview is over and the candidate can go look for free media somewhere else.
The future of debates, Lloyd Benysen v. Dan Quayle, much less Lincoln-Douglas, does not look bright.
Given the Republican party’s wholesale dive into the looniest, furriest idiocies, what’s the upside to any Democrat sharing a stage with reckless fools?
“Senator, you are no Herschel Walker.”
I’m on the fence on this one. It’s getting to be a tougher call.
On the one hand, debates exist to expose the truth, so this is an opportunity for Walz to expose the truth to the lightly engaged about Jensen’s whackiness (e.g. littergate) and incompetence (e.g. eliminate income tax with no plan about what he would cut to make up for the over $11,000,000,000/yr shortfall).
On the other hand, there is a point where an opponent is so fringey and incompetent, it’s generally been considered acceptable to not debate, such as including candidates like Sharon Scarella Anderson and Ole Savior in debates. Though Jensen is in a major party, his level of whackiness and incompetence have plummeted into the fringe Anderson-Savior range, and we as a state have been fine not giving those whackjobs a megaphone.
I continue to dream of a debate format exclusive of reporters and TV anchors. Get actual economists to ask economic questions. Scientists to ask science questions, etc.
But I want Gov Walz to ask him about furries. Witha straight face.
That would be one reason to go face-to-face. “But really doctor, let’s focus on the furries. How many have you personally met in your practice? How often do you recommend freshening the kitty litter?”
Two other considerations suggest a firm “no” to a debate:
1. Walz is way, way ahead in the $$$$ department, and can reach his people thoroughly, and ought to be able to motivate them to get out and vote. Jensen probably won’t be able to do that with his people.
2. Partisanship in this day and age is such that there is no conceivable way that Walz could convince a Republican to vote for him, no matter how crazy Jensen might be. There is no upside to showing Jensen to be a fool. There is no landslide to be had.
This is all true. But I guess I prefer the theory that Jensen is just too disgraceful to bother with.
Just a rhetorical question, of course, but how many Republicans will believe something like this, as opposed to dismissing it as coming from the “lamestream” media?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/11/republican-states-crime-rates-tuberville/
(and, sure, there are probably some things that Democrats won’t believe either, But i think that list is a lot shorter, especially now that Republicans have taken the anti-vaxx position for their own…)
No one else has any comment? Things are worse than I thought. nd I guess they are. In 2016 I had a premonitorty dream, months before the November debacle, which turned out to be all too sickeningly accurate. I’ve had another one along the same lines this year (but NOT in 2020, interestingly.)
You’ve been absolutely right all along—every news person ought to have followed your suggested protocol; every news organization ought to have subscribed to that protocol. It’s seen as daring that NYT and a few other sources at least describe the Big Lie as a falsehood, or as “discredited,” or use similar disclaimers or rebuttals in the text of news stories–stories often reporting the regurgitation of those very lies. But for various reasons, that attempted fact-checking hasn’t made any noticeable difference in public opinion, with the percentage of deluded people even increasing, and the already-small number of Republican politicians willing to disavow the lie now dwindling to the banishing point. The cowardice, hypocrisy, and moral corruption of those Republican candidates create the necessary AND SUFFICIENT conditions for destroying American democracy–first, implementing discriminatory voter suppression schemes, and then subverting the election process itself. Furthermore, this treason is backed up by an armed-to-the-teeth, furiously-incited constituency of a hundred million angry and fearful white folks–who have the sympathy and can expect the interventional support of nearly all law enforcement agencies as well as much or most of the Armed Forces, especially the Air Force.
So, I’d like journalists to ask these Republicans, routinely, not just “Do you agree that Trump lost the people’s vote in 2016 & 2020, and the electoral vote in 2020, IN FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS?” but also: “You were elected in the same election–why do you claim your election OK but Biden’s wasn’t? Why would anyone smart enough to ‘rig’ the Presidential vote be stupid enough NOT to ‘rig’ the Senate, Congress, and other contests on the same ballot?” and furthermore, “If you refuse to accept the results of an election that YOU lost, why should the Democrats accept the results of that same election if you claim that THEY lost?”
and most important, “Will you clearly state that your followers should not resort to violence during the campaign or after the election, no matter who wins or loses?”
vanishing point; banishing point . . . the reader will get the point, I guess.