The Daily Background
| Barack follows Edwards: Will skip Fox News debate
by Arlen Parsa
Barack Obama’s campaign has announced it will not show up to the CBC/Fox News debate in September, reports Ben Smith over at The Politico. Writes Smith:
Obama is the only member of the Congressional Black Caucus running for President, and his decision allows other candidates to skip the debate without facing criticism that they are turning their backs on a leading black institution.
Friday, John Edwards was the first candidate to announce he’d skip the debate. The CBC Institute is hosting one other debate, with CNN in January, in which all candidates are expected to participate.
“CNN seemed like a more appropriate venue,” the aide said, adding that Obama himself had not called CBC leadership or Fox executives to deliver the news. “It was handled at a staff level.”
Excellent. Hopefully the remaining candidates will withdraw quickly as well while announcing that they will attend the CNN/CBC debate instead, dooming the event. With one debate already cancelled and this second one in jeopardy, this whole thing is turning into a huge embarrassment. I predict that Fox will be stuck hosting Republican debates only this year.
