This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Back in the day, someone who taught me about writing said it was not smart to start anything with a question.

So, obstinate as I am, I do so in this blog.

Do you care about presidential debates?

I ask because we are on the threshold of who-knows-how-many debates before we vote in the next presidential election.

No less an observer than former Republican political analyst Karl Rove dealt with this subject in his most recent column for the Wall Street Journal.

The column appeared under this headline:

Trump Taunts Biden Over Fall Debates; Will the two men face off?  If so, why not do it the way Kennedy and Nixon did in 1960?

Here is how the column started:

“When President Biden said last Friday that he’d be ‘happy to debate’ Donald Trump, the former president immediately responded on Truth Social:  ‘Everyone knows he doesn’t really mean it, but in case he does, I say, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, ANYPLACE.’’

In other words, Trump wanted an immediate head-to-head with Biden.  But, of course, that would be difficult for Trump because he is busy – or perhaps sleeping at the defense table – as he defends himself in a criminal trial in New York.

So far, three debates have been proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates.  These would take place September 16 at Texas State University in San Marcos, October 1 at Virginia State in Petersburg, and October 9 at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

Rove believes Trump gained two small advantages from the most recent back-and-forth with Biden.  First, Rove says, Trump took the opportunity to build public interest in seeing the two men tangle.  

Second, if debates don’t materialize, last week’s moment of controversy helped build the case that it’ll be Biden’s fault.  This could hurt him with voters, especially if journalists press the president on why he ducked a chance to go head-to-head with his opponent in a live event.

Rove hopes, at least, that presidential debates take place this year because they have played an important role in the past in U.S. democracy.  

• Senator John F. Kennedy’s telegenic appearance in 1960 helped him win a razor-thin election.
• President Gerald Ford’s blooper in October 1976 that “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe” stopped his upward movement.
• And in 1980’s sole debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, Reagan parried Carter’s attacks with grace and wit, causing undecided voters to swing into his column.

In the last two elections, the quality of presidential debates has declined, due mostly to Trump, a man of unregulated emotions, as Rove describes him. 

More from Rove:

“Debates now have an air of spectacle more appropriate to reality television than to a great nation choosing its leader.  We have mobs of donors and cheerleaders, party bigwigs, and corporate underwriters in a gigantic auditorium, hooting and hollering, with ‘special guests’ invited to unsettle the other side.  It’s distracting and juvenile.”

Of course, that’s exactly what Trump, who professes to be a reality TV star, wants.

Thus, Rove suggests debates should return to something more normal, such as the first presidential debate between Kennedy and Nixon in 1960.  It was held in a small TV studio.  Only the moderator, a panel of journalists, and a handful of network executives were present.

No adoring crowds for either candidate.  No jeering or cheering.  No made-for-TV sound bites.

“A return to simplicity would mean fewer diversions — no cheering or playing to the cheap seats, since there wouldn’t be any.  A more dignified setting might make it costlier for candidates to act up.  It would be easier for the moderator to ask follow-up questions and give each candidate equal time.

“If debates looked less like a professional wrestling match and more like a serious discussion, voters might get a clearer sense of who would be a better president.”

And, finally, this conclusion from Rove:

“Our politics are broken at a time when the nation’s challenges are large and important.  A real conversation between these two men on how they’d lead America could help restore public confidence.  It might even help voters believe they have worthy choices.  There are limitations to how high-minded a debate could be, but we should welcome anything that even marginally improves the degraded state of our politics.”

I agree with Rove.

If presidential debates were fixed like he suggests, they would not just become another Trump campaign circus, which is, of course, wants he wants.

We might learn something about the distinction between the two candidates.

I’d watch.