Debate Inclusiveness

Does Debate Inclusiveness Hurt Dems?

As I prep to do the liveblog thing for tonight's GOP debate, two A-List Democratic bloggers look at the all-inclusiveness of Sunday night's Democratic forum and ask that same question.

It's not so much the time factor -- according to the Dodd campaign's much distributed Talk Clock, Dennis Kucinich got nine minutes and Mike Gravel talked for five. Removing them would thus free up only two and a half minutes each in a two hour debate for the other six candidates, assuming the time was distributed evenly (which it wasn't).

Rather, it's a matter of party message. Digby says Kucinich puts the debate in a harmful frame:

I like Dennis Kucinich and I am glad he's in these debates to voice certain positions that wouldn't get heard otherwise. But I really hate it that he said Iraq is the Democrats' war. I would hope that candidates could play hardball with one another without undermining the single most important rationale for a Democratic president, which is that the Republicans are responsible for the mess in Iraq.

I don't think it matters all that much right now --- as GOP strategist Mike Murphy said on CNN, this isn't really about the voters yet, it's about the media and money. But still, it takes almost nothing to gain currency in the mainstream media and that particular notion is a very dangerous one.

Kos is more blunt:

So is there really a point to having Gravel, in between advocating English as an "official" language and promoting his right-wing flat tax, sit on the debates doing nothing but attack other Democrats?

He polls on the question; the no Gravel position narrowly leads.

Republicans are likely to ask similar questions about Ron Paul again after tonight's GOP debate.