I agree the Repubs are making fools of themselves, but it wouldn't hurt to have more debates, especially for the candidates that are not as well known. Bernie has had a tremendous surge of interest but he's still not known by a large percentage of voters in many of the states. He says about 30% still don't know who he is. O'Malley is hardly known at all by the voters, and he's a very good candidate. Hillary of course has been working for years solidifying her base and she doesn't need to introduce herself. Most already know her. I think the US needs a little more time since it involves the whole country and it's so large and diverse. The big voting blocs in addition to the white/Caucasian block are African-Americans and Latinos. In both those groups, there's a considerable lag between the time a candidate announces and the time they become aware of who the candidate is and what he/she stands for.
Anyway, I agree that a lot of the concern about debates is probably unnecessary but O'Malley in particular and Bernie as well have reason for concern. I wish we had a shorter election season like the UK and most other democratic countries but it is what it is.
Actually, I personally am a lot more concerned about the electronic voting machines that are made by far right-wing companies and that have shown a consistent "red shift" (more voters voting Repub than would be indicated by the exit polls if the polls were not "adjusted" to fit the final result so that the exit poll companies won't have egg on their faces after the election when they have predicted a Dem victory and the final, "machine," results show that the Repubs won). It's really, to my mind, an amazingly insane aspect of so-called American democracy. Because unless the vote is VERIFIED in some way, it's impossible to have a democracy. A large number of people know about the problem, but it's hard to do anything in a political system that is so easily manipulated by the super rich.
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