All Blog Posts from Public Eye

What is the sound of one voice debating? We may find out this fall.

Yesterday, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson became the latest Democratic presidential candidates to decide that they will not participate in this fall’s Fox News Channel debate, which is co-sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus.

According to the AP article:

The debate exodus began two months ago when John Edwards became the first candidate to announce that he would not attend the Sept. 23 debate in Detroit. A week later, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama announced they also would not participate.

This leaves only Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel as the candidates who haven’t yet backed out of the event, making America rethink whether good things come in threes. Why are the candidates voluntarily withdrawing from a chance to get their message across to the largest prime-time audience in cable news? Pressure from two online organizations – ColorForChange and MoveOn – who accuse the "Fair and Balanced" news network of being “hostile to the interests of Black America.”

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Libby Juror Saga, Act Two: Rejoice, Washingtonians and news junkies -- the jury for the Scooter Libby trial has been chosen. And it after much huffing and puffing over potential jurors' potential conflicts of interest, the final pool reflects quite a wide range. In particular, it includes a former Washington Post reporter – who also happened to be a neighbor to Tim Russert and an employee under Bob Woodward. Both of those men are expected to be witnesses in the case. Other members of the jury are not so plugged in to the Washington political scene, reports the AP, such as "a travel agent who only looks at newspapers for the sudoku puzzles" and "a hotel sales agent who described herself a 'master of all things pop culture, but nothing related to current events.'"

The Candidates' Chicken And Egg Problem: Candidates not named Clinton or Obama are also getting stepped on, laments Howard Kurtz this morning. Especially people like New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (yes, he announced this weekend) – who comes equipped with several convenient storylines, like his Hispanic heritage. "That means he should be getting as much 'would be America's first' publicity as the possible first woman president and first black president." Unfortunately, the governor "barely registers in the polls," and therefore, he barely registers among journalists, who "care only about Hillary and Obama at the moment." A political catch-22, says Kurtz: "How do you get media attention when you're nowhere in the polls, even though if you got some media attention, you'd probably rise in the polls, thereby warranting more media attention?"

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