11 debates

In a place the size of Delaware, Tip O'Neill's dictum that "all politics is local" seems especially true.

Small states have certain advantages. Candidates can campaign one-on-one, even for statewide office. Think of the classroom and coffee-shop informality of the New Hampshire primary, only without the hordes of outside media.

This manageable scale means that voters have the opportunity to really get to know candidates — and vice versa. Delaware also enjoys a liberating lack of local television. There's only one major statewide daily paper and a couple of rather good AM news stations. This helps to make campaigns less about playing to the cameras. And since it's not an option to make the campaign about who is more telegenic or TV-savvy, matters of actual substance and importance have room to breathe and play a role in elections.

Consider this: The candidates for Delaware's governor will meet 10 times in forums and debates between now and Nov. 2. (Their first debate was last night.)

Eleven debates. The candidates for president are only considering three — and the Bush campaign has not yet agreed to all of those.

I realize that Gov. Ruth Ann Minner and her opponents, Bill Lee and Frank Infante, aren't going to conjure up comparisons to Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. But they're all willing to accept the challenge, confident enough that they will be conversant in and able to defend what they believe and where they stand. As far as I can tell, none of them has conducted polling to advise them whether or not a debate would be too risky, or whether they ought to avoid the forum and run out the clock to protect an edge.

The idea behind this heavy schedule of forums seems to be that voters ought to have a chance to hear and consider the differences between the candidates who want to lead the state. That seems a little bit quaint. And a little bit inspiring.