Republicans avoiding YouTube debate

[link|http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/27/AR2007072700283_pf.html|Washington Post]

Four days after the Democratic debate in Charleston, S.C., more than 400 questions directed to the GOP presidential field have been uploaded on YouTube, as Republicans are scheduled to take their turn at video-populism on Sept. 17.

But only Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) have agreed to participate in the debate, co-hosted by the Republican Party of Florida in St. Petersburg.

McCain has nothing to lose at this point and Ron Paul would probably show up in a chicken suit if the debate called for it. The rest are mostly not talking but have not agreed to come only a few days before the debate.

I suspect fear of the unscripted questions is the big concern. Even though CNN is sure to avoid any really dangerous ones, it could easily get into dangerous ground on questions of war, immigration, security and illegal intelligence practices.

Jay

I give McCain a little more credit than you seem to - while he can pander with the best of them, he's much less afraid of tough or off-the-wall questions than most of the others who have apparently bought into the Bush Republicans's way of campaigning. I'm sure they'd love the debate to be a [link|http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/01/04/INGPQ40MB81.DTL|free speech zone]... They don't want to face off-the-wall questions that aren't filtered through standard talking points that Wolf mirrors.

If it went ahead with just McCain and Paul it would have the potential to be a great benefit to both of them. If you accept that, then it would be foolish of Mitt and Rudy (and possibly Fred) to let that happen. However, I wouldn't be surprised if CNN and/or the Florida Republicans decided to cancel it instead.

We'll see...

Cheers,
Scott.

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