Barack Obama’s Mistake: Will Turn Down Future Debates
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama is on the verge of making a huge political mistake:
Inundated by dozens of invitations, Sen. Barack Obama will turn down requests to join future debates and forums this fall, his Democratic presidential campaign announced Saturday.
Obama will honor his commitment to eight more debates (five sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee, one by the Spanish-language broadcaster Univision and two in Iowa), but he does not plan to accept many invitations for forums, where the candidates appear sequentially.
If he does this, consider him now a leading Vice Presidential candidate. Just look at what groups will have a chance to look at the others but will be told, in effect, that they really don’t quite stack up when it comes to the highly popular Senator’s time allotment:
The announcement could affect such key Democratic constituencies as the Congressional Black Caucus, Iowa AARP and League of Conservation Voters, campaign sources confirmed.
And there’s always an explanation that makes absolutely sense — providing you’re an avid Obama supporter:
“Unfortunately, we simply cannot run the kind of campaign we want and need to, engaging with voters in the early states and February 5, if our schedule is dictated by dozens of forums and debates,†campaign manager David Plouffe said in a statement.
“Ultimately, the one group left out of the current schedule is the voters, and they are the ones who ask the toughest questions and most deserve to have those questions answered face to face.
“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.â€
The problem with this is that the realities of the way campaigns work mean that if he doesn’t appear he will rightfully be charged with……not being there when it mattered enough for his opponents to show up.
Others can then say he’s ducking the issues.
It will be argued (rightfully or wrongfully) that he’s avoiding these additional forums because he has gotten into hot political water due to some of his statements.
The issue is not the CONTENT of the statements he makes in debates — but that delivering boilerplate speeches to voters is a lot easier then going into risky multiple-candidate forums that where there’s a chance he could get more pesky, tough questions that could give his opponents a) a legitimate opening b) a chance to mis-characterize something into an opening.
All of which suggests that in terms of national political campaign strategy, Obama is not quite ready for prime time.
News that he’ll skip some of these forums should be making Hillary Clinton smile. And why not? She’s not desperate for campaign funds (no matter how much Obama already has). She’s ahead of him in the polls and news about him skipping events, other candidates pointing to him not being there, and angering the event organizers aren’t going to drive his numbers up.
Additionally, video of what Hillary says during these forums will get wide news coverage — and all future news stories that quote her or others will note to readers/viewers that Barack Obama declined to show up.
Obama can control his message better via scripted speeches if he skips more events. But some Democratic and other voters will raise their eyebrows at a candidate too busy (or they will conclude afraid) to appear with other candidates at key forums.
UPDATE: Ed Morrissey:
Will these debates even happen if Obama declines to participate? Other candidates, especially John Edwards, would probably jump at the chance for national television coverage. However, having debates without the #2 candidate will take the luster off of the event and limit its impact among voters. Obama is, after all, the “rock star” of the Democratic primaries, and having a Democratic debate without him would be like a Rolling Stones concert without Keith Richards, only a little more incoherent.
Read his whole post.
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4 Responses to “Barack Obama’s Mistake: Will Turn Down Future Debates”
Barack Cuts And Runs On Debates…
That’s how his opponents will likely cast Barack Obama’s decision to forego any more debates than those to which he’s already committed. Obama has eight debates on his schedule between now and the Iowa caucuses, and he will refuse invitations……
While I tend to agree it’s a mistake, I’ve read that he is actually concerned about the opposite what you’re suggesting.
I read a piece (was it on Slate?) that said he was having too many people show up to his events and that was forcing him to rely more on his stump speech than he would like. The campaign said it was explicitly going to try and have more very small events (20-40 people) where only people that are hesitant to vote for him would be encouraged to come.
If this is true and not just spin I can see why. I’ve heard anecdotal reports about him addressing small crowds that had very pointed questions and how he came across as much more honest and thoughtful than just using his stump speech. I think perhaps Obama is doing a really risky strategy: writing off the organized groups and trying to target individual voters and getting them energized — saying that it’s up to them to convince their family and friends. It’s not really a bad idea IMO, because he has something to say that pisses off all the organized lobbies.
Thank you for reminding us that American politics is so much Kabuki theater Joe.
Message of the Day: Getting out in front of voters, bad. Appearing for sound bite popularity contests, good.
And it’s interesting to see biased memes already popping up in the blogosphere that will almost certainly appear later the mainstream media. Obama got hammered in the debates, he’s scared, blah balh, both of which are either opinion or baseless speculation. And all because political junkies rubbed themselves into a lather of overanalysis.
Thanks Joe, you do the Beltway oligarchy proud by helping slap down with your analysis anyone who goes outside the mainstream. After all, we wouldn’t want to change “the game” in this country, would we? Spoken like a true journalist.
[...] with people castigating him for not attending the Iowa AARP event. Headlines proclaimed, “Barack Obama’s Mistake: Will Turn Down Future Debates,” and “Obama Decision May Hurt In Iowa.” Even the AARP put out a statement [...]