The Republican presidential campaigns that spent days advocating for an overhaul of the debates emerged from a highly anticipated meeting on Sunday night with only modest proposals for change — and a great deal of disagreement.
The campaigns’ requests — a two-hour time limit, 30 seconds for opening and closing statements, equal speaking time for each candidate — were remarkably limited in scope when compared to the ambitious proposals put forth in the days leading up the meeting.
But the campaigns failed to agree on key proposals, including bringing the so-called undercard candidates onto the main stage.
Several campaigns expressed interest in having all 14 candidates appear on the same stage, or splitting the debates into two randomly assigned groups of seven. But representatives for some of the frontrunners, especially the Donald Trump campaign, objected to that suggestion.
Nevertheless, the campaigns intend to send a co-signed letter to the networks later this week — without input from the Republican National Committee — detailing their demands. The recipients of that letter will include Fox Business Network, the host of the next debate on November 10, and CNN, the host of the following debate on December 15.
The meeting, which took place at the Hilton Old Town in Alexandria, Virginia, lasted for more than two hours. It was convened by Ben Carson campaign manager Barry Bennett and included representatives from all the campaigns, except Carly Fiorina’s.
The principle objective was achieving greater control in determining debate criteria with the media sponsors — a role that until now has been held by the RNC. The campaigns have grown frustrated with the RNC’s handling of the process, especially in the wake of CNBC’s messy handling of the third GOP debate last week.
But while several campaigns advocated for relegating the RNC to handling logistics, ticketing and other mundane matters, there is no indication that the campaigns actually intend to remove the RNC from the negotiating table.
In an effort to appease the campaigns prior to Sunday’s meeting, the RNC announced that it had appointed a new official — Sean Cairncross, the RNC’s chief operating officer and former chief counsel — to serve as the lead debate negotiator between campaigns and media networks. That position had formerly been held by RNC spokesperson Sean Spicer.
But several representatives at the meeting said a management shakeup at the RNC would not suffice. What they wanted, they said, was total control over the negotiation process.
The campaigns have grown increasingly frustrated with the RNC’s handling of the debate process generally, and last Wednesday’s CNBC debate seems to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“We’ve taken a back seat to this process, and we want to move closer to the front,” a source with one of the campaigns told CNN before Sunday’s meeting.
Correction: An earlier version of this story said that the Sunday meeting included representatives from all campaigns. A representative from Carly Fiorina’s team did not attend.
