Republicans Shun Debate, Conservatives Cry Foul

[babylonsister]

Republicans Shun Debate, and Right Cries Out


By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: August 1, 2007

When the leading Republican presidential candidates started to squirm last week about attending a Sept. 17 YouTube debate, in which the public would ask questions via video, there was a surprising backlash from the world of Republican and conservative bloggers.

The Republican candidates’ failure to embrace the new format, which the Democrats participated in last week, has prompted a public soul-searching in the blogosphere by some of the party’s most loyal supporters. The candidates, they say, reinforced a notion already bedeviling their side: that Republicans don’t “get” the Web. While the Republicans have mastered talk radio, the Democrats have been ahead in using the Web for fund-raising, organizing and energizing the grassroots.

“The YouTube debate snub is the symptom, not the disease,” said Patrick Ruffini, a prominent Republican blogger and the e-campaign director for the Republican National Committee from 2005 until earlier this year.

The “disease,” he said in an interview, is the Republicans’ failure to convey that “the online community matters to them,” even if they have active Web sites and are using them to raise money. He has helped start an online petition to urge the candidates to participate in the YouTube debate.

The candidates are now trying to patch up the mess. Rudolph W. Giuliani and Mitt Romney, two of the leading Republicans, had said last week that the Sept. 17 date interfered with their fund-raising schedules and Mr. Romney said the video format was demeaning. Today, an aide to Mr. Giuliani said the campaign was working with CNN, which is to show the debate, to find a mutually agreeable date, while an aide to Mr. Romney said they were waiting for CNN to propose a new date and would then consider participating.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/01/us/politics/01cnd-repubs.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[C_U_L8R]

1. Whatta buncha mutts...

a real dog's breakfast.

[Wetzelbill]

3. well, in all fairness, it's tough figuring out all of those newfangled tubes

and things on the interwebs. Especially when, you know, the Butler or Maid just can't do it for you.

[gratuitous]

2. "Soul-searching" by Republican blogosphere?

Whoa, and the knights of the Round Table thought finding the Grail was a difficult quest!

[Wetzelbill]

5. That quest is about like Cheech and Chong trying to pass a surprise

piss test. :)

[sutz12]

8. "But I stayed up and studied all night!"

:smoke:

:rofl:

[tanyev]

4. They'd do it if they could film themselves asking the questions they want to answer.

[Wetzelbill]

6. Just go Jim Bunning style, hell it's the GOP

everybody knows they all have trouble with such things as cogent thoughts.

[zehnkatzen]

7. The only thing surprising is the "Republican backlash"

They can't be so Bambi-eyed that they are really surprised that their beloved candidates shied away from a venue in which they had no possibility of complete milieu-control.

I thought that's one of the things that turned them on, quite seriously.

[unpossibles]

9. perhaps it's because 99% of the questions would look like this:

"JUST WAHT TEH HELL R U DOIN LETIN THEM MEXICANS IN THE AMERICA>!? THIS IS A HUGH PROBLIM CUASE ENGLISH IS THE NATIONAL LANGWIGE YOU MORAN! WEN DO I GIT ANOTHER TAX BRAKE?"

[babylonsister]

10. LOL!

I never considered who might be posting those questions! :spray: :spray:

[Supersedeas]

11. profiles in cowardice