To: Democratic National Committee
Decentralize the Democratic Debates
Instead of holding just two debates with only 20 candidates, Democrats should hold as many simultaneous two-person debates as needed so that all announced candidates can explain why they are the best candidate. The debates would be held at locations across the country and published on the internet.
Why is this important?
The debate format works best with just two debaters and is useless with 10 candidates on-stage, who are competing for attention instead explaining their positions. Instead, candidates would be randomly assigned debate partners as well as their debate location. The debates would ask the same questions and be held simultaneously so no candidate gets an unfair advantage and would give every candidate a fair chance to state why they believe they are the best person to lead the country. By posting videos of all the debates on-line, we could listen to the responses of all candidates to each question to more easily figure out who gave the best answers and whose answers most closely matched our own ideas, as well as which candidates avoided giving real answers to hard questions. On-line voting could be used to assess which answers were most popular instead of who shouted loudest or expressed the most outrageous statements.