Why There Will Be No G.O.P. Debate
Sunday, October 14, 2007
By Michael C. Russell
With the Democratic presidential debate already under the belt, many at Dartmouth are asking, will there be a Republican debate? The short answer is “No.”
“No” might be a little harsh; “Probably not” is more strictly accurate. Unfortunately, it seems that the proverbial ball has been dropped on the debate, and the chances of it happening seem slimmer by the day. As Professor Andrew Samwick of the Rockefeller Center described it, every day “time goes by, the window closes.” Originally, NBC intended to hold debates for both parties at Dartmouth back-to-back. The first, Democratic, was to be followed the day after on September 27th by the Republican one. Since the Democratic National Committee has sanctioned six official debates and chose Dartmouth to host one, no scheduling conflicts could occur. However, the Republican National Committee has made no similar guarantees or official debates, and the candidates freely choose which debates they plan to attend, thus making the scheduling process much more difficult.
It appears that once NBC knew it had a Democratic debate at Dartmouth on September 26th, they moved their focus away from holding both events, and concentrated on orchestrating the Democratic debate. This may have resulted from the guarantee they had from the DNC that all candidates would show up, and arranging a similar debate for the Republicans simply would have been more work. In the College’s defense, the Media Relations office did not stop pressing NBC for word on a Republican Debate, but NBC stonewalled them.
Before NBC acted on a Republican debate at Dartmouth, PBS their under-attended debate of second-tier candidates at Morgan State in Baltimore, Maryland. Network protocol prohibited NBC from announcing a conflicting debate. Had a higher profile debate happened on the 27th, such as an NBC one at Dartmouth, it would have been Fred Thompson’s highly anticipated debut.
So Dartmouth and NBC had to look for a new date to hold the debate. Throughout this process, Dartmouth waited for NBC to commit to a date for a Republican debate. While the College waited on this, other networks worked toward hosting their own debates and the highly time sensitive issue of announcing the debate dragged on. Finally, NBC agreed to holding the debate on December 4th, the last day of classes. While not an ideal date to hold the debate, as students would be heading into reading period the next day, it would have been a satisfactory debate. Yet, once more Dartmouth was scooped by Fox News, which announced a December 4th debate in Iowa. An earlier press release for this solid date would have granted Dartmouth the debate.
Now Dartmouth faces the problem of trying to find a date that’s after the Fox News debate and before the early January New Hampshire primary. Administrators face the enormous task of finding a day that would work for all the candidates. It is already mid-October, and the probability of finding a date this fall seems nearly impossible. December 11th is now on the table as the most probable date for a debate, but as this is the last day of the term and many students will have already left campus, it appears to be mere fantasy. When asked directly if he felt optimistic of Dartmouth’s chances of holding a Republican debate, Professor Samwick responded that he was “hopeful, not optimistic.”
The efforts to get the Republican debate on campus have been marked from the beginning by missed opportunities. NBC never even reached the stage of talking to the candidates and tying them to a date. Proper format for putting together a debate holds that a press release must be sent out first and then the network and college coordinate with the candidates to make sure they come to it. All of this inspires the question of why, when the College had the firm date of December 4th, did it not immediately send out a press release? One could assume that if the pressure was on, simply replacing the word “Democratic” with “Republican” on the press release for the first debate would have sufficed. How did the College let it get away?
As for finding another date for the debate besides early December, or finding a better date earlier in this process, Dartmouth needed to free up the resources for it. A debate requires space all over campus, from rooms in the Hanover Inn, to space in Spalding Auditorium and Alumni Gym, and not unjustly, most of these have already been booked. Despite this, it is not as if Dartmouth could not have freed the space. Though it may be a little rude to tell the Dartmouth Film Society that the showing of The Libertine will be canceled, would it not be worth it for the prestige of holding two national debates?
So as autumn cools down, and the New Hampshire election season heats up, students have already seen Ron Paul on campus and can expect Tom Tancredo next week. Dartmouth has already played host to Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson and even Mike Gravel.
This disparity hardly seems fair. Without any major Republican candidates having visited campus, it would come as no surprise if some students were calling “foul” on the College. n
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