Hypothetical questions have a long history in televised debates.  Dan Quayle was famously asked the same question several times in his 1988 vice-presidential debate against Lloyd Bentsen (about what he would do if he had to take over the Oval Office in the event that the president had died or was incapacitated).  He ducked being specific as long as he could, but eventually stumbled into a rehash of comparing his experience to John F. Kennedy, thereby enabling Bentsen to reprimand him on national television for an ill-advised comparison.

While there wasn't anything evenly remotely close to that turn of events last Wednesday, the New Hampshire debate should remind us that hypothetical questions are of dubious value as debate instruments.  This is especially so if the question is premised on the assumption that some foreign nation or group had done something threatening, thereby requiring a response on our part.  Questions of that sort are likely asked principally for their potential to box a candidate into a corner, thereby perhaps producing a "gaffe" that becomes easy prey for commentary.  In a worst case scenario, this type of a question could unsettle what might be a fragile set of relationships to begin with.  Thankfully, neither Kennedy nor Nixon had to answer a debate question about what they would do if, hypothetically, the Soviets had started shipping missiles to Cuba.  

Another problem is that hypothetical questions make it easy for cynical viewers to lament yet another example of politicians who won't give a straight answer.  But hypothetical questions deserve to be ducked because they are, well, hypothetical.  Most of us when confronted with such a question would likely reply by saying "it depends," and that you can never really know how you'd react until you were faced with the situation.  No reply to a hypothetical question can ever meaningfully sketch out all of the factors that one might consider at the moment of having to decide for real.

Some of the candidates did attempt to challenge the grounds of the Wednesday night hypothetical, but these attempts never made it very far.  Mike Huckabee said, "The problem with the question is it's hypothetical and it's a very detailed question."  But after the questioner retorted that it wasn't an unrealistic scenario, Huckabee retreated to an answer about getting on his knees, and then on his feet, after being prepared in his head and his heart to make a decision.  With a bit longer response time, he might have forced a few more body parts into the equation.

Sam Brownback seemed to want to criticize the question, but then quickly reversed field.  At the start he said, "the problem with your question and scenario is . . .," but then he acknowledged that it described the situation we pretty much face today.  So, he ends up admitting that the hypothetical question may be real, thus forcing himself to have to answer it.  It's no wonder that his answer ended up as the most explicit statement about using military force - after gaining the authority from the people and Congress, of course.

The most dramatic example of a reversal, though, was Duncan Hunter, who began by stating, "I hate to answer a hypothetical, and I don't think you want a president who's going to answer this question in 60 seconds."  And what does he do . . . he answers the question anyway!  If his opening line is accurate, is he packing in his campaign?

Other answers revealed additional inconsistencies.  Ron Paul stressed that we should be talking to Iran now, and while that might be a good thing to do, it has nothing to do with the question asked (which was about a future scenario) and doesn't provide any explanation about why such an approach might work.  Then he interjected that Israel "can take care of themselves," implying that overt military action, while not inevitable for us, might be for them.  This position results in a different layer of inconsistency.

When it came time for Rudy Giuliani's answer, he began by noting that "we have to look at Iran in a different way than just a Cold War analysis."  Here he was evidently responding to Paul, who had invoked a Cold War reference in his reply.  Then, Giuliani ends his segment by noting that "Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot, but it was because he pointed like a thousand missiles at Soviet cities."  So much for getting beyond the Cold War analysis!  

Inconsistencies weren't the only problem, as some answers were downright confusing. Tom Tancredo preferred to "look at the Iranian people . . . to the extent that we can."  What we do while looking at them wasn't clear.  Seeking to have things both ways, he asserted "we don't immediately go to war"  but " we also don't back down."  All this was prelude his attack against political correctness.  Somehow, "political correctness is going to get us all killed," and "it is already the thing that has gotten us killed in other places."  Just exactly what this candidate meant is hard to say, and how this line of reasoning offers an answer to the hypothetical scenario is mystifying to say the least.

Then there was Mitt Romney, explaining that he'd get leaders together to "make sure we're on the same page" without, of course, suggesting what might be on that page.  As for military action, Romney metaphorically suggests "we take the military option off the table" and, instead, "we hold it in our hand."  At the very least, his phrasing almost completely obscures his point - when options are taken off the table, that statement often means that ideas are no longer under consideration.  Is that what he meant? Or by holding something in our hand, does that suggest we are more ready to use it?

In attempting to answer the final question, then, some candidates unsuccessfully challenged the grounds of the question, others were driven to inconsistencies, and some offered replies that were hard to decipher.  John McCain spoke last, and his answer was noteworthy because it was the most explicit in emphasizing unilateral action, for "at the end of the day, it's the United States that will make the final decision."  Like Brownback, he acknowledged that the hypothetical was "closer to reality than many of us appreciate," but unlike him, McCain offered nothing specific about what he would do at the end of the day, except to perhaps to use some of Ronald Reagan's methods - whatever those were.  

Interestingly, Reagan faced a similar question in his 1980 debate against Carter when he was asked what he would do should a terrorist act, like the taking of the American hostages in Iran, occur again.  Reagan began his answer by noting that the question had been asked twice in the debate and that panelist Barbara Walters deserved at least one answer to it.  And then, he also refused to answer it!  Part of his reply went this way:  "I think some of my ideas might involve quiet diplomacy, where you don't say in advance, or say to anyone, what it is that you're thinking of doing."  It's not clear if McCain envisions this sort of Reagan approach, or the Giuliani characterization of Regan - talking to them with like a thousand missiles pointed at their cities.  But one thing's for sure - Reagan knew not to get very far out on the ledge when faced with a "what would you do" sort of question.  None of the candidates in Wednesday night's debate quite got to the point where they responded as Reagan might have, even though it was clear in this debate (and in others proceeding it) that many of the candidates are taking every opportunity to connect themselves with Reagan's approaches whenever they can.

When a hypothetical question leads to the kinds of ambiguities, inconsistencies, and questionable reply strategies that ended last Wednesday's debate, there's a good case to be made that it's the sort of question that doesn't reveal very much that's useful to persons trying to figure out the relative strengths and weaknesses of the candidates.  It's a shame the debate had to end that way.