“Was Tuesday night’s debate an inspiring example of the best that America and representative government can be? Well, no. But why would we want that? What would it even look like? When a president of the United States negotiates with a foreign adversary or ally, when they haggle with Congress, or even when they speak with the press, there is no moderator there to make sure everything is fair and polite. I want to see how these guys react when it’s neither fair nor polite.”
David Marcus, The Federalist

“Some say the shouting match must have put off persuadable voters in the middle. I have a different take. Voters who haven’t decided yet aren’t likely waiting for a nuanced policy debate. If they were, they’d have already made up their minds. Instead, undecideds haven’t yet focused as much on the issues as we political junkies have. Undecideds are looking for the big-picture on the candidates’ differences, and that is what they got…

“For my money, the law-and-order segment was the decisive exchange of the night. The differences between the candidates were stark. I think Trump was likely the big winner there, but that presumes the country is closer to his view than Biden’s. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. The section on climate change versus the economy was also clarifying. The most important and politically consequential controversy—Biden’s shifting position on fracking—was never properly addressed. Even so, the very different ways in which the candidates strike the balance on environment-versus-economy came through. I think that’s another winner for Trump.”
Stanley Kurtz, National Review

“The Commission has it backward: We don’t need more rules, we need more open-ended discussion. I’m positive a Joe Rogan–moderated debate would have been more enlightening than the spectacle we were subjected to yesterday, and without any need to cut either candidate’s mic. Most good podcasts feature free-form conversations that organically converge on the most revealing or contentious aspects of a topic. They are, in other words, what a presidential debate should be…

“Right now, the biggest problem with the debates is their antiquated, heavily moderated, strictly time-constrained format, which incentivizes candidates to give the least forthcoming answers imaginable. Let the debates run for three hours — or for however long it takes. Stop providing candidates with the topics of discussion beforehand. Allow them to go at it, rather than reining them in every time they accidentally stray into some useful back-and-forth. If a candidate wants to be overly aggressive and interrupt his opponent, let him. He’s the one risking being seen as a bully by voters.”
David Harsanyi, National Review

“The commission threatens its own legitimacy by announcing these changes amid the 2020 campaign season… The commission obviously has the right to change its rules. It has the right to do so [at] its discretion. But it also probably should have waited until after the 2020 election to do anything about the handling of future presidential debates. Instead, it announced that it will implement new rules effective immediately, giving the impression that [it] is acting specifically against one candidate, as members of the press certainly believe it is. And just like that, the commission is in danger of becoming yet another institution suspected of partisan allegiances.”
Becket Adams, Washington Examiner

Regarding a mute button, “For one thing, supporters will inevitably cry foul play when their guy is prevented from interrupting their opponent in the middle of telling a lie. For another, it wouldn’t stop the candidates from disrupting each other or the debate. They can still hear each other onstage, and if they’re loud enough with their interruptions the audience might be able to hear them through the other candidate’s live mic. Trump being Trump, he might just start shouting his criticisms if his mic is turned off. All of which is to say that there’s no technological fix for our collective civic disaster.”
Allahpundit, Hot Air