Dodd, Richardson to Skip Fox Debate
If the Congressional Black Caucus is disappointed, that’s to bad.
Written by GussDemocratic presidential candidates Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd will not participate in a Democratic debate co-sponsored by Fox News Channel this fall, joining their three top rivals in bypassing the event.
Their decisions, acknowledged by campaign aides Wednesday, is sure to disappoint the Congressional Black Caucus, whose political education and leadership institute is Fox’s partner in the debate.
But Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, and Dodd, a senator from Connecticut, have been under pressure to shun the debate from liberal groups who say Fox is biased against Democrats.
The debate exodus began two months ago when John Edwards became the first candidate to announce that he would not attend the Sept. 23 debate in Detroit. A week later, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama announced they also would not participate.
~J~ Says:
May 31st, 2007 at 9:24 amVisit ~J~
At some point the real candidates are going to have to face the electorate without being able to cherry-pick who does the questioning. Well, maybe not because when it gets down to the final two they do a lot of dickering to get the ones they want.
I thought Fox did an exceptional job in the Republican debate, but debates right now, with so many candidates, doesn’t give the questioners time to do proper follow-up, although I thought Chris Wallace did good follow-up on his questions, even telling them they had 30 more seconds to answer his actual question.
They just all got together and decided they would boycott Fox. It’s their loss because there is an audience there that won’t otherwise see them if they continue to stick to MSNBC and CNN.
Just my two cents.