Could Hillary refuse to debate in the primaries?

[Mr. Morden]

She should follow Bush's lead from 2000, and agree to do debates, but only a small number of them.  Refuse all debates until December, by which time most of her opponents will have dropped out anyway.

[Mr. Morden]

Yeah, the Iowa caucuses will most likely be held in late January.  It's pretty easy to refuse to participate in debates that are scheduled for more than two months before anyone is voting.  E.g….

"Goodness gracious.  It's still so early, and the voters in the earliest primary states won't be casting their ballots for at least two months.  Voters in other states won't vote for another *six* months.  I think we should wait until more voters are tuned in to the process."

So she refuses to do any debates until after Thanksgiving.  The first debate she participates in is during the holiday season, when people are less tuned into politics, and more tuned into buying presents.  That way, if anything goes wrong in the debate, the damage is limited.

This is also late enough that even if she has a catastrophic Perry-like "oops" gaffe, it's too late for any new opponents to jump into the race at the last minute, because many of the primary filing deadlines will have already passed.

[Mr. Morden]

What network is actually going to bother to broadcast a debate between Sanders and Webb, if Clinton isn't participating?  I realize that MSNBC's ratings are already low as it is, but how many people would actually watch such a thing?

[Mr. Morden]

I bet MSNBC would air a debate with just 2 but I suspect in the end Hillary will end up with 3 challengers, maybe 4. In addition to Sanders and Webb there is O'Malley and maybe Robert Reich (who has hinted he may run if Warren doesn't). There could be others.

In May 2011 Fox aired a debate with 5 candidates (Cain, Johnson, Paul, Pawlenty and Santorum). 

So I'm just saying it is possible that the non-Hillarys may not sit around and wait for her, they may roll their own with friendly outlets. You can also probably count on local media to sponser (both TV and papers). THey may feel that if they build it, maybe Hillary will come.

Yes, they had a debate with 5 candidates, with frontrunner Romney not being present.  But Romney was not seen as being a terribly dominant frontrunner at that time.  The race was still pretty unsettled, and we didn't know which candidates were going to be important.

I'm just saying, even if O'Malley, Sanders, and Webb all run (and it's not clear that they all will), if Clinton remains ahead by 40 points in the polls, and has the entire party establishment backing her as of ~5 months from now when the GOP debates start, who is really going to bother putting on a debate for three guys who, even if you combine their support, still trail the frontrunner who isn't there?  It's not clear that there would be much interest for such an event.  [It's also not clear that all of these guys are still going to be running by then.  Who is going to donate money to Martin O'Malley to keep his campaign running?  As one of his aides said last year, "all of his donors are Clinton's donors".]

Now, if one of them actually threatens Clinton's standing in either Iowa or NH, for example, *then* there'd be some interest.  But otherwise, I'm not so sure.

[Mr. Morden]

If Hillary refused to debate, the media would hound her endlessly for it, and they should. It has nothing to do with her odds of getting the nomination but rather just looking like a decent, relatable human being. Any possible bruising from a primary debate would, I think, be far outweighed by the harm from negative media if she doesn't debate.

You're probably correct, but that would be quite a huge double standard considering how the media lets so many other dominating candidates get away with not debating.

Dominating candidates for statewide races get by without debating, but who was the last non-incumbent presidential frontrunner who didn't participate in any primary debates?

[Mr. Morden]

If Hillary refused to debate, the media would hound her endlessly for it, and they should. It has nothing to do with her odds of getting the nomination but rather just looking like a decent, relatable human being. Any possible bruising from a primary debate would, I think, be far outweighed by the harm from negative media if she doesn't debate.

You're probably correct, but that would be quite a huge double standard considering how the media lets so many other dominating candidates get away with not debating.

Dominating candidates for statewide races get by without debating, but who was the last non-incumbent presidential frontrunner who didn't participate in any primary debates?

I don't see why the principle should be any different for statewide vs. federal races.

The national media doesn't do wall-to-wall saturation coverage for statewide races.

To the extent that she'd get grief for refusing to debate in the primary race, I really don't think it would be about personal animus towards the Clintons.  If Bush had the same sort of commanding lead on the GOP side and refused to debate his opponents, he'd also get criticized by the media for it.