South Knox Bubba has a good post on how the crowded Democratic presidential field is producing too much noise for any individual candidate to be heard. This problem has been particularly acute at the debates, where because of time limitations the candidates don’t have sufficient time to talk about anything. A typical debate highlight goes as follows:
Moderator: Candidate B, what would you do to address the loss of American jobs overseas?
Candidate B: Well, the first thing I’d do would be to [Ding] examine our trade agreements with other nations.
Moderator: Thank you Candidate B and I’d like to remind all the candidates to limit their remarks to the allowed time.
What can be done about this? Unfortunately, I don’t see a very practical method of following SKB’s “get serious” advice and pushing people off the stage. I think we’re stuck waiting for attrition to run its natural course. But one feasible alternative is to break the field into two parts for the upcoming debates. Have a lottery to separate the candidates into two pools. One group will debate one night, the other the next.
I know this isn’t an ideal situation and it will limit some of the on-on-one scuffles. But it will be better than what we have now; the candidates will at least get to express complete thoughts rather than fragments.