Well the dems reverted to the late 1700s method to anoint their hopeful this go round so they should have no issues with Trump refusing to debate Harris as debates were not a thing back then....Surrogates did it in their stead.
How about both parties just sending their best out to debate each other? It would also dial down the whole personality cult thing and better get at where the party stands.
I'd send either Ted Cruz or John Kennedy out for the gop.
Ted Cruz, that is a good call. If I am remembering correctly, he did really well on the college forensics circuit. Yep, just confirmed. Top speaker in 1992, out of Princeton.
But political debates are a different animal. As much as I would love an 8/4/3 cross x format, it ain't going to happen. Debate is a team sport at the high school and college level.
If Trump will agree to an 8/4/3 format, if he is willing to bring Vance in as his partner, then I am there. I didn't go to Princeton, or Yale, or Harvard. They all recruited me. But Duke pissed me off, and like my son's friend, that turned down a full ride at Harvard for baseball, I really didn't want to debate anymore.
But let's put it in that 8/4/3 format, with ten minute prep time. Not that great of a video presentation, but more revealing than any other format. Screw the damn moderators, you don't need one in an 8/4/3 format.
Obviously, Trump and Vance have to be the affirmative. I can see big headed Trump, he will want to be the second affirmative. But establish a resolution, let Vance lay out the "plan". I would give Harris the first negative position, and she can have all the prep time, that is how I rolled.
But a couple of things happen here. First, I get to cross-x Vance, but it is Harris that will cross-x Trump, ouch. That ain't going to be pretty.
And after that Harris/Trump cross-x, it is my turn. In Forensics, it is call "spreading". I mean little spoiled brats like Crux, I ate their asses for lunch. Teams would fly in on private jets with damn cartloads of evidence. I would drive in, in a 1973 Dodge Challenger with a 426 Hemi, running with a radar detector. Evidence was in the vest pocket of my custom suit.
I am switching rebuttals. That gives me 12 minutes to refute the affirmatives and it gives them four minutes to form a rebuttal. Not going to happen. Ain't going to happen. All Harris has to do is wrap it up.