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."
He said them at a closed-door, no-news-media event. Unfortunately for him, one of his supporters leaked the speech.
Ah I see. Lord knows what else he says behind closed doors.
I think he is a muslim still and pretends to be christian to get votes. I really really do.
It’s a trap!
All Hussein has to do is run out the clock and he knows it. Why should he give The Beast an opportunity for a Hail-Mary pass that might connect?
It’s smart of him to avoid debates, especially since he sucks so bad at them.
I wonder how he’ll avoid debating McCain.
Not a fair comparison. Ombomba already agrees with all those people, so it wouldn't be a debate at all.
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