Should Rush Limbaugh moderate the GOP presidential debates?

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last updated 8 January 2015

The Republican National Committee is looking to shake up the party's next round of presidential debates.

In addition to threatening to deny CNN and NBC the chance to host any of the GOP's 2016 primary debates, the RNC is considering scrapping the old model in which journalists from middle-of-the-road networks act as moderators, reports Paul Bedard at The Washington Examiner.

Not everybody is convinced that putting stars of the right-wing infotainment world in the national spotlight is a good idea. For one, some potential candidates might object to facing off against such opinionated personalities. "Levin has been highly critical of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), while Limbaugh spent months ripping a Senate immigration plan backed by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)," Cameron Joseph notes at The Hill.

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The benefits of this are readily apparent. These three radio hosts command large audiences, far larger than a typical presidential-primary debate would attract. Furthermore, they would attract the people that the GOP most needs to energize for a national election — grassroots conservatives and highly-engaged voters. Partnering with these three would vastly improve the perception of the RNC, both for partnering with favorite New Media voices and for continued defiance to the mainstream media. [Hot Air]

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.

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