Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Donald Trump thumbed his nose at traditional retail politics, preferring large rallies and appearances on conservative TV. In defeat, he refused to deliver the familiar concession speech and instead falsely claimed that his Republican<\/a> or Democratic<\/a> opponents stole elections.<\/p>\n Now it\u2019s the presidential debates that are about to get a Trump makeover. They may never be the same again.<\/p>\n With last week\u2019s Trump-inspired threat to boycott 2024 debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates<\/a>, the Republican National Committee began priming the electorate for a race in which the GOP nominee might not debate at all.<\/p>\n \u201cIt certainly gives the candidate more of an out if they\u2019ve decided debating is to their disadvantage to be able to say, \u2018The party rules prevent me from accepting\u2019 the commission\u2019s invitation,\u201d said Trevor Potter, a former chair of the Federal Election Commission who served as general counsel to Republican John McCain\u2019s two presidential campaigns.<\/p>\n The RNC, he said, is attempting to \u201cblow up the structure and therefore change the expectation to \u2018will they or won\u2019t they\u2018\u201d debate.<\/p>\n If there was any possibility that the GOP, following Trump’s loss in 2020, would take a more traditionalist turn in the next election, the RNC\u2019s war on the debate commission will serve as yet another reminder of how expansive the former president\u2019s influence remains \u2014 and the stamp he\u2019ll put on 2024 regardless of whether he runs. The debate commission was a joint creation of top officials at the RNC and the Democratic National Committee. But that was in the 1980s. Today\u2019s populist-oriented GOP is far more mistrustful of traditional political institutions \u2014 including independent, nonpartisan organizations like the commission, which exists only to facilitate general election debates and receives no funding from the government or any political party, political action committee or candidate.<\/p>\n \u201cTo the average Republican voter, the response to this action will be some variation of, \u2018It\u2019s about time,\u2019\u201d said James Dickey, the former chair of the Texas Republican Party.<\/p>\n From the media to universities to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he said, \u201cWe\u2019re seeing institution after institution prove they cannot be trusted. It\u2019s about time one of them paid the penalty for it.\u201d<\/p>\n In its plan to amend party rules to prohibit future nominees from participating in commission-sponsored debates, the RNC is doing the work of an aggrieved former president who complained bitterly about the debate process in 2020, and who is now expected to run again in 2024.<\/p>\n Yet it\u2019s also reflecting popular sentiment within the party. Republicans have long complained that debates and their media moderators are biased against them \u2014 what Saul Anuzis, a former chair of the Michigan Republican Party, called \u201ca very serious frustration among Republicans in general, and many of the candidates in the campaigns, that we don\u2019t necessarily get a fair deal.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if \u201cthe RNC did this because they\u2019re upset about the way the commission treated Trump,\u201d said Scott Reed, the Republican strategist who managed Bob Dole\u2019s presidential campaign in 1996, \u201cthis issue\u2019s been boiling for cycles now.\u201d<\/p>\n The debate commission, he said, \u201chas outlived its usefulness.\u201d<\/p>\n Jeff Roe, a Republican strategist who managed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz\u2019s presidential campaign in 2016, said that \u201cthe days of playing ball with the insider media moguls is over.\u201d<\/p>\n Few Republicans expect debates will not occur in some form in 2024. The commission may still mollify the RNC. Or debates could be arranged through some other organization or through candidate-to-candidate negotiations directly \u2014 the way it worked prior to the commission\u2019s establishment. As Dick Wadhams, a former Colorado Republican Party chair and longtime party strategist, put it, \u201cI don\u2019t think God sent down tablets from heaven saying that the debate commission is the final word.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOn the other hand,\u201d he said, \u201cany time you get Trump involved with these kinds of things, it gets excessive and it gets out of line.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt in my mind that what Trump would want is basically cheerleaders for him to be the moderator,\u201d Wadhams said. \u201cThat\u2019s not right, either. I think there\u2019s some middle ground there that needs to be reached.\u201d<\/p>\n But with the commission still in charge of the debate process \u2014 and with the RNC threatening to pull out \u2014 there is no guarantee that a compromise will be reached or that debates will go on in 2024. When it was formed, the debate commission was designed expressly to institutionalize a process that had become mired in haggling between campaigns. And Democrats are not likely going to let Republicans dictate the terms of 2024, touching off one of the confrontations between the parties ahead of the campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is part of the Trumpified Republican Party\u2019s war on institutions,\u201d said Pete Giangreco, a Democratic strategist who has worked on nine presidential campaigns. \u201cThey don\u2019t want every citizen to vote. They only want their voters to vote. They don\u2019t want everybody\u2019s vote counted. \u2026 And now they don\u2019t want honest debates.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cThis is totally in line with everything they\u2019re about now. They don\u2019t want institutions. They want everything to be wild, wild West.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump, if he runs, will likely be advantaged by increased flexibility to debate or not. His performance in his first debate against Biden in 2020 was widely viewed as a disaster, and he was perceived by viewers as the loser<\/a> of both that and the second debate. More important, even if commission-sponsored debates ultimately go forward, the RNC\u2019s criticism of the process is telegraphing to the public that, if they go poorly for the party\u2019s nominee, the GOP will complain they were unfair.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a tactic straight out of the Trump playbook, similar to how the then-president worked for months before the 2020 election to sow distrust<\/a> in the outcome by claiming without evidence that it would be rigged.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump got his ass kicked in these debates, so they want to change the rules,\u201d said Stuart Stevens, who was Mitt Romney\u2019s chief strategist in 2012 and who worked against Trump\u2019s reelection in 2020. \u201cIt\u2019s like a football team that can\u2019t pass, so they want to make it illegal to pass.\u201d<\/p>\n But that is exactly where the Trump wing of the GOP is today. Before Trump\u2019s takeover of the party, presidential debates \u2014 and general elections, broadly \u2014 were seen as an opportunity to draw in moderates and independents or other late-deciding voters who might still be persuadable late in a campaign.<\/p>\n But partly because of voting rules that were modified amid the Covid pandemic, the first debate in 2020 was not held until more than 1.2 million ballots had already been cast<\/a> and millions more Americans had already made up their minds \u2014 one of the complaints of the RNC, which wants them held earlier. And the modern GOP, which since the 1990s has won the popular vote only once, in George W. Bush\u2019s reelection campaign in 2004, is no longer chasing moderate voters in the way that it once did, instead shifting its imperative in national elections to expanding its base.<\/p>\n For a populist like Trump, railing against the debate commission and its media moderators may be more valuable than debating.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s sort of become like a litmus test,\u201d said Kirk Adams, a former Republican state House speaker from Arizona, where Trump held his first rally of the year, on Saturday. \u201cWhere do you get your news from, and what organizations do you talk to and participate in, particularly in the far-right Trumpian wing?\u201d<\/p>\n The risk to Republicans, he said, is that the party\u2019s \u201cnarrow-casting of the message\u201d can fall flat in swing states where presidential elections are decided.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear how much voters will miss if traditional debates do not go forward. They are typically not decisive<\/a> in elections, and most viewers came away from the first debate in 2020 simply feeling \u201cannoyed.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Still, elections are often won and lost on small margins, and Michael Brodkorb, a former deputy chair of the Minnesota Republican Party, said the GOP \u201cis making a mistake by not embracing every conceivable opportunity to bring its message to voters.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think it is insane to even entertain the possibility of Republican candidates not participating in presidential debates,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you\u2019re running for office and you\u2019re not shaking hands, kissing babies or going to debates, I\u2019ve got to tell you, I don\u2019t think you\u2019re going to do well.\u201d<\/p>\n