“Putin refuses to participate in debates, and after watching a few minutes of them, you can see why. They’re designed to implicitly affirm Putin as the only plausible candidate among a roster of clowns and to depict the trappings of the democratic process itself as being beneath respectable people like him. After attending one debate, Grudinin rightly declared them a circus, walked off stage, and refused to participate. Two weeks later he was back on, but walked off again when Communists of Russia candidate Maxim Suraykin brought onstage a woman accusing Grudinin of evicting her family. Grudinin fled the stage, everyone began screaming, and Suraykin tried to attack pundit Maxim Svechenko (who isn’t running for president but was in the debate anyway as Grudinin’s backup). Pandemonium ensued. Sobchak, too, has been subject to intense harassment and verbal assault, particularly from Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who called her a “prostitute” and a “total whore.” Sobchak responded by throwing a glass of water in his face. All of this on live state TV. In one debate, the abuse brought Sobchak to tears. You wouldn’t need to understand Russian to get a sense of the insanity.”