Dana KuhnWashington University will probably not host another presidential debate in four years, said Chancellor Mark Wrighton on Friday.
“It would be highly improbable that we would see another opportunity like this,” said Wrighton. “It’s not just that we will have done three, but we’ve been selected four times in a row. So they’ll probably give us a rest in 2008.”
Although Wrighton did not completely rule out the possibility of a four-peat, he was not eager to commit to that possibility.
“I think we have to look at the opportunity as it comes our way,” he said.
Student Union President David Ader said it was premature to speculate on the Commission on Presidential Debates’ plans.
“A lot of people thought it’d be highly unlikely to be chosen four times in a row. Anything can happen,” he said.
One reason for the possible hesitation about hosting another debate is the lack of publicity it has generated for the University. Wrighton expressed frustration that media outlets are not providing the University with the publicity it hoped for from the debate.
“If you read the news, or hear the news on radio or television-especially the networks-it’s ‘the debate next week will be in St. Louis.’ It isn’t always, much to our dismay, that ‘the debate will be at Washington University in St. Louis,'” he said.
The CPD will post site selection criteria in 2006. It then invites potential sites to submit proposals. Since it does not actively solicit proposals, the CPD will not specifically ask the University to host the debates again.
Only the University and Wake Forest University have ever been repeat hosts to the presidential debates since their modern start in 1960. Wake Forest held the debates in 1988 and 2000, and the University served as a debate site in 1992 and 2000. It was also supposed to hold a debate in 1996, but President Bill Clinton pulled out of that debate.
Since the creation of the CPD in 1987, the University has hosted over 20 percent of the presidential debates.
The University’s popularity with the CPD as a debate host has not been lost on Wrighton.
“If we did it another time, I’d say we’re becoming institutionalized as a debate site,” Wrighton quipped.