The Democrats Debate While The Republicans Are To Busy

The Democrats will debate tonight at at Dartmouth College, and the Republicans are scheduled to debate tomorrow night at Morgan State University in Baltimore. Eight of the Democrats are scheduled to appear at their forum, and it will be moderated by NBC’s Tim Russert. The Republican front runners have decided against attending their debate which is at a historically black college. They all have said they have scheduling issues. This is a bad excuse since they all already used it for a Spanish-language debate aimed at Hispanics that had to be canceled last month because only John McCain would commit. So far the top four candidates Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain and Fred Thompson all cited scheduling conflicts in skipping the event. Tom Tancredo backed out of the debate after it was learned that recently declared Republican candidate Alan Keyes would attend. If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen. “I am puzzled by their decision. I think it’s a mistake and I wish they would change their minds,” Newt Gringrich said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” The Democrats have already attended a similar forum in Washington D.C. in June. The debates will be moderated by PBS host Tavis Smiley, and will be aired on PBS. The producer of the debate plans on having five empty podiums to represent the no shows, and it will likely be brought up. The black vote traditionally goes to the Democrats, but Republicans had been making some gains. Not showing up will set back all those gains in one quick stroke.
Alan Cosgrove