GOP debates will be noisy but useful: Our view

Ready or not, here they come. The Republican presidential debates are almost upon us. And, suffice it to say, they are causing considerable consternation.

Party insiders fret that real estate mogul Donald Trump, or some other candidate, might hog the limelight and harm the GOP cause. Many outsiders dismiss the debates as useless political theater. And just about everyone has something bad to say about how the television networks plan to exclude candidates who don’t reach a certain threshold in polling averages.

Apart from a candidate forum on C-SPAN that hasn't attracted widespread interest, thefirst debate is set for Cleveland next Thursday. It has already set off what amounts to a race for 10th place. That’s because the sponsoring network, Fox News, says it will take only the top 10 in polling averages for its prime-time debate. Candidates who don't make the cut will be relegated to a B-team event starting at 5 p.m. ET. .

Critics point out that the difference between someone polling at, say, 2.4% and someone at 2.2% is statistically insignificant. Nor is it lost on anyone that a recent uptick in juvenile name-calling and beyond-the-pale provocations would appear to be partly driven by some candidates’ desperate desire to get attention and boost their poll numbers.

For these and other reasons, it might be tempting to dismiss the debates as pointless exercises that won’t provide much information for voters. That would be a mistake. While debates have never been a good gauge of a potential president's strategic decision-making or management experience, they are useful in exposing flaws and demonstrating communication skills.

Think back to the much-derided debates among contenders for the 2012 Republican nomination.

Then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry showed himself in a November 2011 debate as not ready for prime time, and perhaps for the presidency, when he proclaimed that he would shut down three Cabinet departments and then — "oops" — couldn’t name them.

This came a month after former pizza chain executive Herman Cain had his woefully impractical “9-9-9" tax plan ripped apart by fellow Republicans. As Michele Bachmannaptly quipped: “When you take the 9-9-9 plan and you turn it upside down, I think the devil’s in the details.”

The debates also showed general election voters just how far the party had swung to the right. They saw Bachmann strenuously arguing against childhood vaccinationprograms and the entire field refusing to raise taxes even if paired with a plan to cut spending by 10 times as much.