Never Meta Debate They Didn't Like

On time.com this morning, Michael Grunwald reviews last night's Democratic debate in Philadelphia. Like many of the debates in this primary, the structure of this one was, roughly: Controversy, Controversy, Electability, Gaffe, Controversy, Symbolic Hot-Button Issue, Insinuation, Incitation to Fight; And Now, a few Boring Questions About What You'd Actually Do if Elected.

Leaving aside the argument about what kinds of information the debates should be trying to get at for undecided voters, it's amazing how meta Presidential debates have become. They're more about the campaign than about the object of the campaign: Will you pick your opponent as your Vice President? Can your opponent beat John McCain? What do you think of your opponent's campaign? How will this incident from your past affect your campaign?

And there's a meta level beyond this meta level: the debates have become, in a way, about the debates themselves as a measure of one's fitness to be President. The unspoken question behind so many of Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos's poke-'em-with-a-stick questions was really: This is me asking you an adversarial question! How does your ability to respond to this question prove that you are qualified to be President?

But maybe there's a good reason for those meta, process-oriented questions. You could make a strong case that the biggest differences between Clinton and Obama are meta differences about the political process. The Obama argument is that the process itself is one of our biggest problems and that we need a candidate who can alter, transcend or jujitsu that process; the Clinton argument is that the process is what it is, it's not pretty, and we need the candidate who can best survive and fight within that process.

I doubt the Philadelphia debate did anything but harden the candidates' supporters in their meta beliefs about that meta process. But if the debate did any good, it was to make clear the process that the candidates—and the rest of us—are up against.