Shorter debates. Longer opening statements. Random, seven-candidate contests. Fourteen-candidate scrums.
The list of possible reforms to future Republican debates is growing as several campaigns get ready for a Sunday evening meeting in a northern Virginia hotel. And there is one point of agreement among some of them: Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus has let them down, as have the television network hosts, and it is time for the candidates to have more say in the process.
"What's amazing is how bad the RNC botched this," said one campaign strategist who planned to attend the meeting. "They've got the biggest new TV show of the fall! The networks are making tons of money off of us. We should be telling them what to do. Reince is moving now because feels like he's going to be dumped by the next nominee, because of how badly he's botched this."
Preibus has tried to shape the reaction to this week's CNBC debate, which the candidates saw as a disastrous brew of bias and bad rules. But no campaign was satisfied by the chairman's decision to freeze NBC News's role in a future debate. Their complaints date back to before the CNBC debate, to a process that, they say, has been opaque and disrespectful.
"I want the candidates to have more input into how it's done," retired neurosurgeon and GOP contender Ben Carson told reporters in West Memphis, Ark. on Friday, dodging a question about whether he agreed with Priebus. "I believe we need to be thinking about how we create a debate situation where the American people see what drives each one of us."
The campaigns are being asked to send no more than two representatives to the session, which will be facilitated by longtime Republican attorney and fixer Ben Ginsberg. Carson and Donald Trump, two front-runners who got relatively little time at the CNBC debate, kickstarted the idea for a meeting. But some of the most avid interest in reform is coming from campaigns that have felt sidelined. Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), two current officeholders who have been repeatedly relegated to little-viewed "undercard" debates, are sending aides to push their own proposals. According to the expected participants, Graham's campaign has taken a leading role, with encouragement from candidates who want the senator in prime time.
"I don't think there's any reason to put the candidates in two groups," said Carson's campaign manager Barry Bennett. "We can put a man on the moon; we can figure out how to put 14 people on the stage. The issue is time and parity, not how many people are on stage. How about turning the microphones on and off when people are supposed to talk? The point of the polling threshold is to keep crazy people offstage, but functionally, it's keeping elected senators and governors off."
Trump's campaign is cool to that suggestion, and more interested in how the number of people onstage could be reduced. This disagreement between the two candidates with the most leverage could prevent a true consensus forming on Sunday evening. But among all campaigns there's interest in letting the campaigns vet debate rules or even moderators, both factors that became toxic at the CNBC debate.
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"We think it's critical that every campaign has an opportunity to make opening and closing statements, and that we all have equal time, so that we can put ourselves forward in the best light possible," said Chip Englander, the campaign manager of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). "That's what the viewers want to see."
Even former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, who has raised little money and even less support in polls, was hoping to come by Sunday's meeting.
"The way the RNC devised this is terrible," Gilmore said in an interview. "What’s more annoying is the statements they’ve made trying to protect themselves from their own misconduct and how they’ve delegated power to the networks. But the moderators not being fair isn’t the real issue. The real issue is how arbitrary standards are determining who Republicans get to see in the debates. It’s total fraud."
