Jonathan Last

How to Run the GOP Debates
May 14th, 2015

Jonathan Martin has a piece on the logistical problems with running a series of GOP presidential debates where there are 12 (or even 17) candidates.

My (only) half joking idea is to run them like the English Premier League: Start by having two tiers of debates for candidates, based on their national poll numbers. Say, Tier A for candidates over 5 percent and Tier B for candidates below that.

Run the A and B debates in the same venue on consecutive days.

And after each series, you relegate the worst two performers from Tier A to the B pool, and elevate the top two performers from Tier B to the A pool.

I know what you’re thinking. How do we decide who these top-two/bottom-two finishers are? Easy: Twitter.

Fin: BOB vs. trolls, defending the Amtrak violinist, and debunking the Game of 72 - EntertainmentTell | TechnologyTell May 15, 2015 at 3:39 pm

[…] A great idea: Run two tiers of GOP presidential debates, with a soccer-like promotion/relegation system. If that happened though, the second-division debate would be way more entertaining (Jonathan V. Last) […]

Wysiwyg Mtwzzyzx May 19, 2015 at 11:46 pm

But the leftist oeratchiks have access to twitter too- it’ll be skewed unfavorably to a bad performer as we split our votes.

doesky May 20, 2015 at 9:29 am

As a white guy, I’d be satisfied with Thomas Sowell alone deciding who gets bumped up or down. Extra points for adding Victor Davis Hanson for middle America representation and Dennis Prager for common sense and values.

"We should have called it The Virtue Rises. Humbug." — JVL

In the midst of PC police, low-budget holiday movies, and mandatory in-law time, the only Christmas spirit on most people's minds these days is the kind that comes in a flask.

"It's long and it doesn't have Spider-Man in it anywhere." — Cody Last

From the all-star cast who brought you The Seven Deadly Virtues comes a book with a look at the good life… or the crazy-stressful-overwhelmed life… of a father. As anyone who has spent time with a child knows, fatherhood is a mixed bag of fun, fury, and failure. So much is lost—no more catnaps during football commercials, no more exotic vacations or impromptu day trips. And yet, as authors like P. J.…

"The best argument for chastity since Bea Arthur." — Andrew Ferguson

An all-star team of eighteen conservative writers offers a hilarious, insightful, sanctimony-free remix of William Bennett’s The Book of Virtues—without parental controls. The Seven Deadly Virtues sits down next to readers at the bar, buys them a drink, and an hour or three later, ushers them into the revival tent without them even realizing it. The book’s contributors include Sonny Bunch, Christopher Buckley, David “Iowahawk” Burge, Christopher Caldwell, Andrew Ferguson, Jonah Goldberg, Michael…

""A powerful argument that the only thing worse than having children is not having them."" — P. J. O'Rourke

For years, we have been warned about the looming danger of overpopulation: people jostling for space on a planet that’s busting at the seams and running out of oil and food and land and everything else. It’s all bunk. The “population bomb” never exploded. Instead, statistics from around the world make clear that since the 1970s, we’ve been facing exactly the opposite problem: people are having too few babies. Population…