Candy Crowley: I won't be a debate spectator

Stand-ins for Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, left, and President Barack Obama, right, run through a rehearsal with moderator Candy Crowley, back to camera, ahead of Tuesday's presidential debate, Monday, Oct. 15, 2012, at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. / AP

Moderator Candy Crowley promised Tuesday that she won't be afraid to insert herself into the conversation at tonight's town hall debate despite pressure from the campaigns to largely keep quiet.

The presidential campaigns put together a "memorandum of understanding" mandating that the moderator of the town-hall style debate "not ask follow-up questions or comment on either the questions asked by the audience or the answers of the candidates during the debate or otherwise intervene in the debate except to acknowledge the questioners from the audience or enforce the time limits." The document is not released to the public but was leaked to Time Magazine, and it details how the campaigns come together to agree to a set of rules designed to protect the candidates from unexpected moments.

After Crowley said last week that she planned to assert herself during the town hall debate - telling CNN that "[o]nce the table is kind of set by the town hall questioner, there is then time for me to say, 'Hey, wait a second, what about x, y, z?'" - the campaigns complained to the Commission on Presidential Debates that she wasn't following their script. While the Commission is independent and did not publicly sign off on the memorandum of understanding, it is effectively controlled by the major parties.

Frank Fahrenkopf, co-chairman of the Commission, told CBS News Monday that Crowley "got out in front of herself" in discussing her role as moderator. He said the Commission had passed along the campaigns' concerns to Crowley and stated that it is not her job, for example, to note that the State Department disputes what a candidate has said.

Crowley did not sign off on the memorandum of understanding, and she continues to assert that she will not simply stand on the debate sidelines.

"They will call on 'Alice,' and 'Alice' will stand up and ask a question. Both candidates will answer. Then there's time for a follow-up question, facilitating a discussion, whatever you want to call it," Crowley told CNN on Tuesday. "So if Alice asks oranges, and someone answers apples, there's the time to go, 'But Alice asked oranges? What's the answer to that?" Or, 'Well, you say this, but what about that?'"

Crowley is only the second woman to be given the honor of moderating a presidential debate. The first was Carole Simpson, in 1992. Both women have been assigned the town hall debate, something Simpson lamented in an op-ed last month. While men are assigned the debates where they are tasked with questioning the candidates, Simpson wrote, women are reduced to the role of the "lady with the microphone."

[looneytoonsindville]

Since Candy Crowley stepped out of her moderator role at the second presidential debate and joined the Obama team, the US electorate has been misled BY THE DEBATE MODERATOR!

I believe it is essential that, in order to maintain the integrity of the Debate Commission, the record be corrected during the preliminary remarks during Monday's debate.

Tens of millions of Americans now believe that President Obama called the murder of Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi a "Terrorist Attack" during his Rose Garden speech on September 12. I watched that speech live and HE DID NOT! In the Rose Garden speech, every time Obama referred to the Benghazi attack, he called it an "attack" or an "attack in Benghazi". When he spoke of the attackers, he called them "killers who attacked people" not "terrorists". Viewing the YouTube record of the Rose Garden speech on Benghazi, at 4:18 Obama spoke generally about American values, not about the Benghazi attack when he said the words "... acts of terror ...". Candy Crowley should be publicly reprimanded by the Commission for her misconduct.

Finally, I would ask you to consider this question: How was it that the President knew that Candy Crowley had a transcript of his Rose Garden speech on Benghazi with her at the podium? If she were, in fact, acting as an impartial moderator, then there is no way that the President should have known that. This was collusion, pure and simple. A form of Chicago political shenanigans.

[IBDavid]

No but you'll be a shill for our POS president.

[squeekm]

MODERATOR - BIASED! Moderator should not take side that's why you are in the middle! You should have not agreed nor sided in anyone of them! Your #1 role is to be UNBIASE!

[aggietx2]

No, her #1 role was to help Odumbo as much as possible. Being unbiased was never on her to-do list.

[squeekm]

MODERATOR - BIASED! Moderator should not take side that's why you are in the middle! You should have not agreed nor sided in anyone of them! Your #1 role is to be UNBIASED!

[lene3168]

How Can Candy that I am ashamed of her! Why do these liberal moderators have to be so obvious?? YOU forget WE all are watching this, we see the bias!!!!

[elke8]

Candy sure wasn't a spectator, nor was she an undecided voter. It is just an example of how the media is in bed with Obama. I don't trust anything you people say, that is why internet is so popular, we have to fact check YOU>

[iamfirmin]

Candy was HORRIBLE.. come on .. LET THEM DEBATE EACH OTHER.. I am tired of the liberal involvement

[losingfaithingovernment]

My hat's off to Candy. She did a very fair and impartial job as debate moderator. I had serious doubts but am quite pleased. Thanks Candy!

[bluejacket2-2009]

Man, Romney must have grown up bullying over people his whole life... It was close but Obama won that debate.. There where times Obama coud have done better, Ronmey never did say what deductions he would cut to balance a 5 trillion tax cut..

Obama was in the the carnival barkers face tonight.. Good job by the President..

[independentthought4us]

Wow Candy Crowley is wonderful if you like biased, and unprofessional journalists. the only thing she could have done to appear any more biased is to wear a Obama/Biden t shirt.