If you thought the last few Democratic primary debates were a train wreck—too many candidates onstage, moderators asking the same questions (about, say, Medicare for All) over and over—the next one, on October 15, promises to be even worse. Twelve contenders will face off, the most ever to share a single stage in a primary debate. And with the Ukraine scandal dominating the news, the moderators will be tempted to bombard the candidates with questions about impeaching Trump that are more or less irrelevant to the duties of the next president, should one of them get the job.
But the moderators—Erin Burnett and Anderson Cooper of CNN and Marc Lacey of The New York Times—have some power to make the event at least a little less awful by raising issues that matter to voters but haven't gotten the airing they deserve. They can ask questions about specific policies that address those issues that some candidates have advocated, and others have not. This would at least make the evening a little more informative, and possibly even livelier.
Read Full Article »