Who Benefits From Debate Mania?

How The GOP Should Fix Its Phony Debates
BOCA RATON, FL - OCTOBER 22: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney debates with U.S. President Barack Obama with at the Keith C. and Elaine Johnson Wold Performing Arts Center at Lynn University on October 22, 2012 in Boca Raton, Florida. The focus for the final presidential debate before Election Day on November 6 is foreign policy. (Photo by Rick Wilking-Pool/Getty Images)
BOCA RATON, FL - OCTOBER 22: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney debates with U.S. President Barack Obama with at the Keith C. and Elaine Johnson Wold Performing Arts Center at Lynn University on October 22, 2012 in Boca Raton, Florida. The focus for the final presidential debate before Election Day on November 6 is foreign policy. (Photo by Rick Wilking-Pool/Getty Images)

The Republican National Committee’s post-2012 election analysis (which the RNC wisely elected not to call an autopsy) was an unusually honest and smart self-critique. One of the problems it addressed was the troubling explosion of primary debates. In 1988 there were seven Republican primary debates. In 2000, there were 13. In 2012, the number soared to 20.

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