Obama’s campaign released the following memo earlier today:
Unfortunately, we simply cannot run the kind of campaign we want and need to, engaging with voters in the early states and February 5 states, if our schedule is dictated by dozens of forums and debates. Ultimately, the one group left out of the current schedule is the voters and they are the ones who ask the toughest questions and most deserve to have those questions answered face to face.Therefore, after this week, we will only be attending the five DNC debates through the sanctioning period of December 10, Univision, and the two Iowa debates previously mentioned. Candidate forums – where candidates appear sequentially will be considered, but we are unlikely to accept many of these. Instead, Barack will spend his time answering questions directly from voters in places like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, and elsewhere. We simply cannot continue to hopscotch from forum to forum and run a campaign true to the bottom up movement for change that propelled Barack into this race.
Personally, I think there are too many debates and this is a positive step in saving the voters from more of the same..
7 Responses to Obama Limits Debate Participation
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I agree Jen. This was a smart move on their part. The candidate’s time is the most valuable resource of any campaign. At least they know how to use it wisely.
All the candidates should send the Senator a thank-you card for providing them with the political cover to do the same (smart) thing. Of course, even with this new-found free time, I predict that the Senator will still diss the Young Democrats of America again, despite the fact that our November meeting is in New Hampshire.
I just heard on Hardball, that South Carolina is going to limit their debate to the top 4 candidates. Should be interesting to see how they figure that one out..
jen b. i think its the top 4 polling that they will choose.
and if i remember its a debate the week before their primary so that would meam HRC, BO, JE and whoever has been fourth the whole time.
I’ll still respect any candidate that disses the glorified drunken hookupfests that dominate so much of YD conferences.
But I’ll be more curious to see if any candidates that bow out of these popcorn-niblet “debates” in the interest of “connecting to voters” adequately utilize things like YouTube and their websites to answer questions that ought to be asked in the depth they deserve.
Since the geezers don’t do the Tube yet, I saw one thing I liked quite a bit with Edwards’ appearance at YearlyKos. First, he had the usual room full of people asking random questions. Shortly after, he was in front of the laptop opening email and taking IM’s while recording himself. About an hour of material developed.
What would be fabulous about doing a lot more of this online though, is that I am sure the same question is asked over and over again without people even knowing it on the campaign trail. Collecting these into a YoutTube FAQ (perhaps even with stats on frequency of the question on the campaign trail?) would probably save a lot of time for both the campaign and its supporters.
The Axiom slice-and-dice thing the Repubs have done would also fit into this nicely … chop up the FAQ into nice bits for “Weekend warrior Boomer ex-yippie” or whatever and have fun.
top 4, not an easy one. If they go by height, Kucinich is in trouble.
What Barack means is: we are having trouble scheduling all the fundraisers we need because of these stupid forums.