Any questions?
Posted on 04/19/2008 6:06:02 AM PDT by southlake_hoosier
INDIANAPOLIS | Hillary Clinton's campaign on Friday accepted Gary Mayor Rudy Clay's invitation to debate Barack Obama on urban issues in the struggling Steel City -- only to have the mayor promptly rescind the offer he had extended a day earlier.
The Democratic presidential contenders squared off for two hours Wednesday night in Philadelphia. But the first half of the ABC News debate was dominated by what Obama decried as "gotcha" issues, including Obama's characterization of "bitter" small town voters and Clinton's faulty recollection of coming under sniper fire during a 1996 visit to Bosnia.
Clay, an Obama supporter, said he worked late Wednesday night and didn't get a chance to watch the entire Philadelphia debate until Friday morning. Upon further review, Clay scratched his debate invite and asked each candidate to instead spend an hour at the Genesis Center separately fielding questions about crime, education, health care and job creation.
"After analyzing the last debate, we've come up with a decision here that it's best to have a forum on urban issues," Clay said. "I'm sure both candidates would accept the debate, but we don't want the debate to get to other issues, other than urban issues."
The reversal came just hours after the Clinton campaign told reporters the New York senator had accepted Clay's invitation, as well as an earlier debate offer made by the Indiana Debate Commission.
Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communications director, challenged Obama to shake off his "bad debate" in Philadelphia and give Hoosiers a chance to hear the Democrats parse the issues.
"There have been 21 Democratic debates and four one-on-one debates with Senator Clinton, all televised nationally," responded Obama campaign spokesman Kevin Griffis. "Our focus will be on meeting with voters in Indiana and hearing directly from them. We will make a decision about debates shortly."
Griffis said Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, did not ask Clay to change his invitation and the campaign had not been in contact with the mayor's office since the debate invitation was made Thursday morning.
Clinton campaign spokesman Jonathan Swain said Clinton is eager to discuss urban issues but needs some time to consider the revised offer of a televised forum Clay presented late Friday.
"Senator Clinton accepted the debate invitation. Unfortunately, in just a couple hours Mayor Clay changed his invitation." Swain said. "We'll take a look at this new proposal."
Chicken, bawk, bawk!
Down here in the South we have a saying: “If yer skeered...SAY yer skeered!”
Sorry, but he’ll be having cramps and bloating on that day.
Now that it is fair game to examine Obama, we don’t want any more debates. Hmm.
He backs out because he is a stupid chicken chit.
“Come on Barry, show your “character”..”
He already has. It reminds me of Monty Python - “Run away... Run away.”
Yep...keep him shackled to your favorite issues urbanite...
Works for me at this point.
It's just a flesh wound.
All the Dems know how to do is “cut and run”. That's all this nonsense is, and that Mayor is a hack/shill disgrace.
Those are not "gotcha" issues. Those are character issues.
Character, Obama, not the color of their skin, is what Martin Luther King dreamed people would some day be judged by.
How bout a debate that they only ask if they are for Change?? What a coward.
Pray for W and Our Troops
It's not clear if Obama backed out or the DNC felt all the fodder from Camp Hillary is hurting their eventual nominee. Frankly I'd like to see Hillary defeated in PA and get on with it.
Not a Obama fan ... but I think this debate thing has gone way overboard. What is the current count ... 20 plus?
So Obama is ready to debate Armanajinadad, Kim Il-Sung, Castro, Chavez and assorted bad guys but not in front of the American people.
Any questions?
Hm. Obama showed he’s not ready for prime time and the brothuh knows it.
By my count, there hasn’t been a single presidential debate since the 1980s. Every other “debate” has been canned questions and answers, but nothing that resembles a real debate. A real debate would require candidates to state a resolution, then defend it from a counterstatement from the other candidate. The alternative would be for debaters to qustion eachother. What we have now is bread and circuses. Every tough question is left without a follow up. The only exception was when Obama was drilled about the capital gains tax (and he clearly showed he had no idea what he was talking about).
Instead of asking whether Obama ever supported a gun ban in Illinois, ask him if he supports a national gun ban now (he does). What is his position on abortion? Partial birth abortion? How, exactly did Bush “fail” in dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions? Would Hillary or Obama have offered to sacrifice Israel? Obama also did not commit to use of force if Israel were threatened—why was he left off the hook with his “appropriate response” answer? What did that mean? Would he or would he not use force? At least Hillary made it clear that she would respond with “massive retaliation”.
All of these debates have been a joke.
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