Posted on 09/30/2004 10:10:14 AM PDT by rumrunner
DJ Kerry Team Wants Debate Lecterns Free Of Timing Lights
09/30/2004
Dow Jones News Services
(Copyright © 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP)--Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's campaign demanded Thursday that the lights signaling when a speaker's time has expired during debates with President George W. Bush be removed from the lecterns because they are distracting, but the commission hosting the debates refused.
An angry exchange between representatives of the Kerry campaign and the Commission on Presidential Debates took place just hours before the candidates were to meet at the University of Miami for the first of three debates, The Associated Press learned. Kerry's team threatened to remove the lights when they visit the debate site with the candidate later in the day.
"We'll bring a screwdriver," said a Kerry aide familiar with what several people called an angry exchange. The commission did not return a call seeking comment.
The commission placed the lights on the lecterns in clear view of the television audience and those in the auditorium. An agreement between the Kerry and Bush campaigns specified that timing lights "shall be placed such that they are visible to the debate audiences and television viewers."
However, Kerry's team contended that the agreement doesn't specifically say where the lights should be placed, and it said putting them on the lecterns creates a distraction. The Bush team pushed for the lights in negotiations with Kerry advisers.
The commission is a nonprofit and nonpartisan corporation that has sponsored all the presidential debates since 1988.
You're on a roll. I'll just sit back and enjoy it. ;^)
-PJ
All the screwdrivers will go on strike...
...oh, wait, they're outside along the street...
LOL.
Although when we all noticed his "suntan in a can" he sent his staffers out to call it a right wing smear, according to Carl Cameron.
The faux war hero has a glass jaw.
As long as they also have Gene Gene the Dancing Machine!
All the more reason why one has to wonder why a screwdriver would be allowed in the room.
Absolutely fine. Breaking an agreement in front of 70 million viewers is just the way to get's Kerry's part of the debate started on strong note. (LOL)
i love that picture....
I have never seen a campaign so laughably bad, or a candidate so thin-skinned as Cabana Boy. You gotta hand it to the Clintons, Howard Dean would have been a better candidate.
Glass jaw indeed. Can you imaging listening to this man whine and blame everyone but himself for everything for the next 4 years? Shoot me now.
But he must also use the suntan in a can.
Per FNC Debate commission notifies Bush campaign that Kerry campiagn will "Rip out lights"
Last minute substitutions and replacements are, come to think about it, a demonrat kind of ploy....(Toricelli comes to mind)
We need the oompa lumpa picture...
Hey didn't he vote for these rules? Oh, he actually voted against the rules before he voted for them. So does that me he will be for or against the rules at debate time? Good question.
Listen Kerry, you won't be distracted by the lights. You will be too busy dodging blasts from your opponent. He is going to rip your hide off. The lights are the least of your worries.
I think I'd have to give up politics. Watching Kerry tonight for 1.5 hours will be nearly unendurable as typically the second I hear Kerry's voice, I mute the television.
Fox is saying that the Kerry campaign is STILL whining over this and that there may be a "showdown" when Kerry does his walk through this afternoon.
Cool!
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