GOP Debates Making a Difference

Have the debates been lame? Have the numerous meetings been overkill?

I don't think so. And in fact this last debate in Des Moines was extremely significant. Decisive even, especially if Mitt's been finally banished from the perennial frontrunner's perch.

But see Jamelle Bouie, "Were the Debates a Mistake?":

If you can get past the attacks on President Obama, the disregard for actual economic conditions, and the assertion of “philosophical decreptitude” in American liberalism, you’ll find a smart point about the GOP presidential debates in Fred Barnes’s latest op-ed for The Weekly Standard. For your sake, I’ll just post it here:

Besides aiding Obama, Republicans have hurt themselves in numerous ways by letting the debates be the organizing events of the campaign. The stronger candidates have been diminished by appearing, debate after debate, on equal footing with also-rans whose chances of winning the party’s presidential nomination are nil.

Given the extent to which Barnes is a solid member of the conservative establishment, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were echoing the thoughts of many other conservative elites. The debates have had an astonishing and unprecedented impact on how conservative voters view and evaluate the Republican presidential candidates, and it’s hard to say that this has been a positive development.

Oh, Fred Barnes. So what? He's a reliable establishment conservative. And that's just it: He is establishment. The debates have been at times boring and excessive, but they've been the best thing for the nomination campaigns I can remember in a long time. And they're making a difference.

See Wall Street Journal, "The Front-Runners Start to Go at It."