Depending on what part of the country you live in, the latest in a series of debates for Democratic presidential candidates is about to get underway in Iowa. ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos will moderate the event, which will be the eighth Democratic debate of the campaign thus far.
And if Barack Obama’s campaign has anything to do with it, there won’t be too many more.
Tired of trudging from one debate to the next, Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign is saying “Enough.” A Web posting Saturday by his campaign manager said that the schedule of unceasing debates and forums in the Democratic presidential campaign was proving a distraction.
Obama will decline new debate invitations until mid-December, the posting said, and after that, he will consider requests case by case. […]
“We simply cannot continue to hopscotch from forum to forum and run a campaign true to the bottom-up movement for change that propelled Barack into this race,” campaign manager David Plouffe wrote in the posting on the campaign website’s blog.
Like Matt Yglesias, I feel a certain selfishness in applauding Obama’s decision. I watch all of these debates, in the hopes of catching something newsworthy, and routinely end up disappointed. Not only is the same ground is covered over and over again, but with eight candidates, even thoughtful answers are cut short by time constraints. I end up watching the events a bit like some NASCAR fans watch car races — waiting for a stunning victory or a spectacular crash. In reality, both are pretty rare.
As far as I can tell, Obama’s campaign isn’t exactly shutting down the debate calendar. There have been seven debates and 19 candidate forums thus far. Based on the statement from the campaign yesterday, Obama will have participated in 15 debates by mid-December, so it’s not as if voters won’t have a chance to measure his, or any other candidate’s, debating skills.
Any chance other candidates will follow Obama’s lead on this?
