I enjoyed watching the GOP debate last night, but I also find the format stifling. Part of the problem is that it’s really hard to have a good debate with that many people on stage. But a more general problem with presidential debates is that the candidates themselves refuse to participate in debates unless they are very controlled events. So while I agree with many commentators who would like to see the presidential debates run under a more open-ended and lengthy format, the candidates themselves are a key obstacle in this regard.

What do I mean by this? Well, most people aren’t aware of the actual rules of the debates, which aren’t usually made public. But this 32-page agreement between McCain and Obama in 2008 should quickly disabuse you of the notion that a presidential debate ever has more than a small chance of being an unscripted watershed event in a campaign. The agreement prohibits the candidates from: issuing further debate challenges, appearing in any other debates with any other candidates, asking each other any questions, bringing any notes to the debate, using any video footage of the debate in a future campaign ad, or requesting that the other candidate agree to a pledge. Further, the moderator is almost completely constrained: response times are precisely specified; even when the moderator is given discretion to extend a question, it is often only for one minute, and he directed to give equal time to each candidate, and in some cases constrained as to who follow-up questions must first be directed to. Many actions are scripted: candidates are formally restrained from moving around except as specifically proscribed and must shake hands at specified times. Camera positions and cuts are specified. The size of the podiums is specified. The color scheme of the backdrop must be approved by the campaigns. It’s an enlightening document.

Obviously, presidential elections are serious business, and one would expect thorough rules for the debates. And a lot of the rules makes sense. But the overall feeling you get from reading those rules is that you’re not really watching a debate, just a highly structured joint media appearance. The sense is not that the candidates are submitting to a third-party event, but instead are constructing a bi-partisan event of their own. And since campaigns loathe events that they can’t control, the results are predictable. Honestly, it’s amazing to me that we ever even get presidential debates; it’s a testament to how much of a norm they’ve become, since candidates with solid leads in the polls or significant funding advantages have very little incentive to participate in debates. You see this a lot in local elections, where well-known incumbents refuse to debate, since it can only hurt them, by creating unscripted moments or by giving their opponent free media time and a chance to increase name ID. Obviously, primary and general presidential campaigns do not resemble local elections completely in this regard, but I think the debating norm is more fragile than most people assume.

Still, I don’t want anyone to get too nostalgic for the Lincoln-Douglas debates during their race for the Senate in Illinois in 1858. They are probably rightfully held up as an example of American democracy at its finest, but that doesn’t necessarily make them even close to our normative ideal. I can’t imagine the format of the Lincoln-Douglas debates would thrill anyone today: 60 minutes to one candidate, followed by 90 minutes to the other, followed by a 30 minute rebuttal by the first candidate. No questions from a moderator. Just straight up speeches. Can’t imagine that would engage many voters. I mean, I think I’d have a hard time watching it.

There’s also a tendency to glorify the L-D debates as substantively profound. Yes, the two of them spent most of the seven debates laying out their positions on slavery and its western expansion, but both candidates were just as interested in tarring the other’s position as they were in promoting their own. Douglas was intent on painting Lincoln as an abolitionist who wanted political and social equality for slaves post-freedom; Lincoln hinted that Douglas was himself a part of the slave power conspiracy that produced Dred Scot, and hinted that a Dred Scot II was going to force slavery upon the North. Neither candidates charges were remotely true; Lincoln was a rather conservative Republican (especially in 1858), and Douglas was in the midst of an attempt by what might actually be described as the “slave power” to politically crush him in response to his stand against the expansion of slavery and the LeCompton Constitution.

In sum, I think there’s a pretty hard cap on how effective a political debate can be for the purposes of informing the electorate about the relative positions of the candidates. The candidates have all sorts of strategic incentives to obscure their positions and the positions of their opponents, and that’s as true in a debate as it is during campaign stops and in stump speeches. Likewise, the idea of an unscripted back-and-forth between the candidates is probably fantasy: even if you could get the campaigns to agree to it (unlikely), it would probably not produce the results you were looking for. Just as with press conferences, a good politician can take any question and provide only as much response as he/she wants, without looking too bad. I think the best you can hope for in a debate is that it reveals something about the intelligence, the preparation, and ability to think on the fly of the candidates. Those are not policy positions, but they are plausibly attributes that one my like to see in a candidate. The ability to show them off in a debate is probably at least weakly correlated to the ability to employ them as President.