This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 22, 2012 - Last Tuesday, President Barack Obama met Mitt Romney, his Republican challenger, for a highly anticipated town hall debate in Hempstead, N.Y. The two presidential candidates are meeting again tonight in Boca Raton, Fla., for their third, and final, debate on foreign policy.
In a year when debates have played an influential role in the presidential contest, this kind of face-to-face encounter among statewide contenders has been strikingly absent. Debates between statewide candidates in the general election have been few and far between.
That can be bad news for voters who often look to debates to provide information about and insight into a candidate and their stands. Instead, voters may find that discourse among statewide candidates may be more confined to their ads.
So far, the candidates for U.S. Senate -- U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, R-Wildwood, have engaged in two debates. The first debate was at the Missouri Press Association Convention on Sept. 21 and was livestreamed on a few news websites. Last Thursday's debate aired during a Cardinals playoff game, a fact that McCaskill mentioned in her opening statement.
The candidates for governor -- incumbent Gov. Jay Nixon and Republican challenger Dave Spence -- have met only once, also at the MPA convention on Sept. 21. With only a couple weeks before Missourians go to the polls, efforts to squeeze in more debates have faltered.
There’s been a well-reported struggle between Spence and Nixon to schedule more debates. And an effort to get Attorney General Chris Koster and GOP nominee Ed Martin to debate at the Missouri Bar Conference fell through.
Debates seemed to occur more frequently during the primary season. Spence and GOP rival Bill Randles squared off in a few forums and debates, as did the three Republican hopefuls for secretary of state. Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder and state Sen. Brad Lager, R-Savannah, went toe-to-toe on radio talk shows, while a handful of Democratic candidates for that office had a forum in St. Louis County.
(In contrast to Missouri, the three contenders for Illinois' 12th congressional district seat participated in a few broadcast debates, encounters that have showcased the contest’s acrimonious nature.)
It wasn't always this way. Back in 2008, the Missouri Press Association had debates for all five statewide offices – including lower-profile ones like lieutenant governor, secretary of state and state treasurer. And two years ago, they had debates between U.S. Senate candidates and state auditor contenders.
The MPA, an association of the state’s newspapers, typically holds debates every two years at its annual convention. MPA executive director Doug Crews said his group made a decision early on to focus on the U.S. Senate contest and the gubernatorial debate.
“We just didn’t have a place to squeeze any other forums in,” said Crews, adding that the association had newspaper-related programming during the other days of its convention.
Crews said that his best recollection is that the down-ballot debates in 2008 didn’t have a huge audience. Part of that, he said, was because the convention coincided with the University of Missouri School of Journalism’s 100th anniversary. That event brought scores of people to the university's Columbia campus.
And it should also be noted that 2008 didn’t have a U.S. Senate race, which likely meant voters paid more attention to statewide contests -- and the presidential race -- that year. Crews agreed that the U.S. Senate debate may have overshadowed any hypothetical down-ballot exchanges that could have taken place at this year's convention.
George Connor, a political science professor at Missouri State University, questioned whether the public is yearning for more debates for lower-profile statewide offices. For one thing, he said technology has evolved to allow people to be informed about candidates.
“Once upon a time, voters got their information from debates. But (now) we get all of our information from these micro-bursts," Connor said. "We get our information from Twitter. We get our information from Facebook. I don’t need no stinkin’ debates, especially when they don’t add anything."
Connor said the debates in general tend to attract already decided voters, adding that candidates themselves have little to gain and a lot to lose if they make a notable gaffe. And, he added, a debate for a little-heralded statewide office may simply touch on themes within an advertising campaign.
“If we look back in time, we'll discover that there really haven't been -- outside of the U.S. Senate and maybe gubernatorial -- a lot of debates" for down-ballot races, Connor said. "That's always been true. Now the fact that there are none for the most part may be noteworthy, but maybe not particularly surprising."
Still, Crews said the MPA forums can be helpful in getting smaller newspapers close to candidates, which in turn could provide useful information for those publications’ readers.
“We’re going to have our members in anyway,” said Crews, referring to the MPA’s annual convention. “And we’ve always invited in members of the other media to come in and cover those. And I think it’s just another opportunity for the public through the media to see and hear the candidates lined up next to each other.
“It’s important for the candidates to be in a setting like that and to answer questions so that the voters can make decisions on who they’re going to vote for,” he added.
While the time for traditional debates -- with moderators and strict rules for answering questions -- may have passed, it's not out of the question that statewide contenders could appear together on a radio show before Nov. 6.
Campaign Trail, a weekly column, weaves together some of the intriguing threads from the world of Missouri politics.
