More than a few people who tuned in Wednesday night to the first debate of the 2024 Republican presidential primaries probably found themselves asking, “Why am I watching this?”
If you did watch, you might have learned a few things about the candidates; for instance, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis seemed to say that he’s going to invade Mexico, which is good to know. The problem is that almost nothing you learned would have helped you judge which one of them might do a good job in the Oval Office.
More than a few people who tuned in to the first debate of the 2024 Republican presidential primaries probably found themselves asking, “Why am I watching this?”
I’m not saying the debate was especially devoid of policy substance; compared to many we’ve seen in recent presidential primaries, Wednesday’s installment was about average. Which is to say, it was shallow and often misleading, but not completely uninformative. There were two essential problems, however. The first was that the now-standard format is too far removed from what a president actually does to give viewers a good sense of what the next presidency will be like. The second was that in this case, the absence of the Republican front-runner made the whole exercise feel like a dim reflection of the actual race for the nomination.
When the first televised presidential debates were held in 1960 between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, many observers were contemptuous of the enterprise, as though having potential presidents appear together on television was demeaning to them and the office. Yet if you watch them now (which you can) you might be bored out of your mind with the granular policy discussions — unless you’re itching to take in a lengthy back-and-forth on the future of Quemoy and Matsu.
The story we now tell about those debates is the triumph of image over substance; all most people remember is that voters found Kennedy youthful and vigorous, while Nixon looked sweaty and sinister with his five o’clock shadow.
And perception certainly played a role in Wednesday’s event. For instance, someone clearly told DeSantis that he should show some dynamism and personality by speaking louder and moving his head around more than he usually does. It most definitely did not work.
But so what? If you want to know what kind of president DeSantis would be, you’d do much better to look at what he has done as governor, where he’s demonstrated extremely conservative views and authoritarian tendencies. That might be what you’re after, or it might not. But it’s a much better indicator of who he was before the debate, and who he will be after.
And here’s a secret: Presidents don’t actually have to debate. The outcome of a trade war with China won’t be decided by the American president having a rhetorical showdown with Xi Jinping, to be scored by a randomly selected panel of focus group participants. After getting through the general election debates next fall, the candidate who wins won’t have to do it again for another four years, if at all.
The outcome of a trade war with China won’t be decided by the American president having a rhetorical showdown with Xi Jinping.
There’s nothing wrong with eloquence and a quick wit, which are useful in debates — the president does have to do a lot of talking — but the factors that really produce presidential success include deft handling of crises, the ability to build legislative coalitions and manage the federal government, and balancing short-term and long-term goals. None of which can be demonstrated with a clever zinger delivered in a canned response to a question designed to catch the candidate off guard.
Debates are performances, and they reward those who are good performers more than those who would be good presidents. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to explore the depths of character that make someone a good president when there are eight candidates the moderators have to get to, and they spend much of the time squabbling with one another. (This is particularly true when, as on Wednesday, the broadcaster leaves everyone’s microphones on at all times.)
One can argue that even if they’re often terrible, debates are still the best thing available to voters to size the candidates up. A two-hour exposure to them will tell you more than a series of 30-second ads you’ll have pumped through your television over and over again. But the more candidates there are, the harder it is to get a good sense of them. And they have more incentive to use their limited time on attention-seeking sound bites in hopes of leading cable news and social media afterward. This debate may have given answers to some questions, including “Just how much contempt do the more seasoned politicians have for Vivek Ramaswamy?” (Answer: quite a lot.) It did provide a good deal of insight into what may be the most fundamental question animating the Republican primaries: Which one of these people is actually capable of defeating Donald Trump in this nominating contest? That question was answered as clearly as it could have been: none of them. Some would be plausible presidents; as a liberal I would surely be infuriated by the decisions made by a President Nikki Haley or President Chris Christie, but it wouldn’t be preposterous for them to hold the job. What is preposterous, however, is the idea that any of the eight candidates on that stage in Milwaukee can overcome Trump and win the hearts of the GOP primary electorate, at least as things stand now. We may not have needed a debate to tell us that. But if you still harbor any doubts, there will be another debate a month from now, and it’s likely to tell us just as much as this one did.
Paul Waldman is a journalist and author focused on politics and culture. 
