Bina Venkataraman I want to know how the candidates plan to protect Americans from disasters caused by climate change. Lena Wen Ozempic brought the thought-provoking question into his campaign about whether Medicare should cover obesity drugs, given that while they could reduce downstream health care costs, they could also “upend the entire health care system” in the process.
and Molly Roberts and Josh Tyrande In a tech double-team, Molly asks about the harms of social media to kids, while Josh looks into digital privacy law, with the latter writing on the thorny issue: “When a platform negligently or maliciously distributes harmful information about an individual, should we punish them? How do we enforce those penalties? Good luck, everyone.”
There are over a dozen other questions waiting for you in this roundup, but we’ll all need good luck to answer even a fraction of them.
Longtime political analyst Jeff Greenfield He writes that if debates can’t be substantive, they should be entertaining. By abandoning traditional questions, he might learn more about the candidates’ personalities and cognitive abilities. His proposed questionnaire is certainly unconventional.
- Name the members of your first cabinet.
- Finish this sentence: “When I look back on my life, there’s one thing I wish I had done…”
- Start at 100 and count backwards by sevens.
In contrast, former Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey In his op-ed, he writes that one question in this debate (and in race) is more important than any other: “What are we going to do about the debt?”
“The debt — the national debt — is not the elephant in the room,” he writes. “It is the elephant in the room, accompanied by a neighing donkey. What has been a growing disgrace for years is now a national nightmare and an ever-growing stain on the country’s economic and social future.”
Kelly cites many statistics that show our debt path is unsustainable. If you need more convincing evidence, just look again at the statistics from last year. Editorial Committee A series about this issue and all the creative ways the country is tackling it.
Karen Tumulty She’s hopeful the night will be productive: There will be no cheering from the studio audience, a change she’s long pushed for, and she’s also intrigued (though skeptical) by CNN’s plan to unmute candidates’ microphones only when they are allowed to speak.
Of course, if things go off the rails, George Wills Consolation: one of these candidates will lose.
“The only reassuring certainty is that when the furor of this year’s election subsides, one deeply reviled candidate will have been wiped from the political scene,” George wrote in a column about Biden’s remarkable success in generating “nostalgia for Trump.”
Not to shatter George’s dreams (or his boiling point), but is he so sure? If Biden wins, Trump will lose, but he won’t. To tell He lost, and our politics will never get rid of him. Indeed, in its editorial, the committee exposes the various ways Trump supporters are trying to find weaknesses in the country’s electoral system.
Chaser: If you want to hear live commentary from the debate, follow our 12 columnists’ comments here starting at 8:45pm ET. And if you want updates delivered straight to your mobile inbox, sign up to receive text messages from Karen, who will be attending the debate.
Further commentary on Trump/Biden
- from Catherine RampellAmericans should be skeptical of President Trump’s green card proposal, which sounds great if you ignore his entire record.
- from Mark ThiessenTrump’s isolationism is largely a myth, and his supporters want the United States to remain a world leader.
- From Professor of Political History Jeff Bloodworth: Rural voters don’t trust Biden. Do progressives care?
- from Jen RubinTrump’s favorite unqualified running mate could mean a repeat of the Sarah Palin disaster for the Republican Party.
Perry Bacon He believes we are seeing the limits of centrism: around the world, he writes, “the downsides of this approach are increasingly overshadowing its upsides.”
The quick and easy benefit: centrism gets people elected. But does it enable people to be governed well? And keep Were they elected?
Perry doesn’t think so, specifically citing “détente with the wealthy” and total subservience to the polls as limiting factors that make centrists “stop-gap allies of the cause.” It’s no wonder that voters fed up with that situation turn to the right, with its misguided but powerful arguments.
Chaser: In the UK, the Labour Party is seeking to win in this election cycle. Edith Pritchett It’s a delightfully cartoonish take on it, as if already bogged down by poll worries.
- Thirty years ago, Paula Jones and O.J. Simpson changed American culture, wrote the editors of Vanity Fair. David FriendWe’ve been living in a freak show ever since.
- The clock is ticking on border policy impasse, which could become a terrorism time bomb. David Ignatius Warning!
- As an Indian writer Siddhartha Dev Why is Arundhati Roy being prosecuted for a speech she made when she was 14? (Hint: it’s because of Narendra Modi’s disgraceful election.)
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s… “goodbye.”
Does watching this debate count?
Have a newsworthy haiku of your own? Please send by e-mailIf you have any questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to contact us. See you tomorrow!
