Posted on 07/28/2007 5:33:45 PM PDT by tobyhill
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A Republican presidential debate scheduled for live national television coverage will be missing two of the GOP's leading contenders for the nomination.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney both say they have more important campaign commitments scheduled.
"We have six events on that date that are already scheduled," Giuliani told a Miami radio talk show host on Friday, adding that CNN arbitrarily picked the Sept. 17 date without checking with the candidates.
As part of an arrangement with the video-sharing Web site YouTube, questions for the debate would come from the online video community, an element Romney seems uneasy about.
"I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman," Romney said earlier this week, referencing a Democratic event held in South Carolina on Monday that included a question about global warming from a snowman.
Romney, however, blamed a scheduling conflict for skipping the Florida event slated for the newly renovated Mahaffey Theater along the city's downtown waterfront.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
So Ron Paul and McCain get the stage?
Scraps getting the scraps.
It adds to Romney’s and Rudy’s credibility to skip such a phoney baloney pile of poop.
With CNN and MSNBC’s history and the fact that the only people that watch their crap are liberal morons I don’t blame the GOP Candidates for bailing on them. I’m sure one question for Mitt would be,”boxers or briefs?”.
I agree, but its not like Jim Leher has anything over a snowman.
No offense CW, but it would be stupid for any serious candidate to attend. This is a CNN ratings grab gimmick.
Just as bad as the Dems running from Fox News. Pathetic cowardice.
I’m more concerned that the GOP really does do all that they truly can do to make sure that Hillary Clinton doesn’t truly become our next POTUS! It would also be very helpful to have a majority of conservative politicians in Congress as well asap! I’m for everything that truly succeeds in creating these two political scenarios.
It’s basically a free hour long AD for you. Why not debate it.
If you can’t face a Youtube question, how ya gonna face up to Iran or China.
I think this is one of those situations where you can’t really win. If you agree to a YouTube (so-called) debate, you are agreeing to participate in an essentially shallow forum in which silly, essentially meaningless real-time graphics are overlaid that show the supposed popularity of any given statement on a second-by-second basis. To paraphrase Newt Gingrich, 10 or 11 people standing passively at microphones, reduced to the level of 40-second answers, standing like a trained seal, waiting for someone to throw them a fish.
But if you don’t agree to participate, you run the risk of being seen as decidedly less hip, a rusty old codger that doesn’t understand nor embrace new concepts in the digital world. You’re not in with the in-crowd.
It depends on which "independent" voters you're talking about: the ones who haven't made it out of sixth grade, or the vast majority who are called "independent" because they are not political junkies, and don't watch mindless debates in which ten or more candidates have milliseconds to answer ridiculous "gotcha!" questions posed by either "media news personalities" or some socially challenged freakazoids living in their parents' basement with a video camera.
It's YouTube, dude! Romney's right on this one.
I have a hunch that Romney is also going to opt out of the Cartoon Network debate.
GOP is dumber that a toe sack full of wet kittens for supporting Rudy Inc. The You Tube debate is BS and should be avoided, that’s a gimme but Rudy is the destruction of the GOP IMO.........He runs, DNC’s bitch wins.......
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