Redstate

By kowalski Posted in 2008 — Comments (16) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

As many of you know from Gamecock's earlier post on the subject, a lot of Republican frontline candidates have decided to duck out of the debate at Morgan State University in Baltimore this upcoming thursday. I have press credentials for the debate, and I'm grateful to everyone at Morgan State and PBS for providing them to me, but unfortunately there is no way that I can attend. I'd like to say a couple of things about that:

1) My decision not to attend the event had nothing to do with the fact that many Republican candidates are no-shows, in what I think is a mistake and what the Wall Street Journal (through Taranto's "Best of the Web") is also calling a mistake. I had to bow out of covering it for Hinzsight nearly a month after working to get the credentials because of some pretty considerable, serious and immediate business concerns that made it impossible for me to attend. When I first wrote about it, I didn't go into detail, but my decision was precipitated by a constellation of concerns that all arrived at the same time, some relating to money, and then right afterward an enormous influx of rush work for our premiere customer. There's just no way that I could justify leaving to cover it, drive 750 miles roundtrip, and spend the better part of two days to do it while my dad was left here, tasked with getting through what's happening all by himself. I'm disappointed that I'm not going, but to really do the job right would have taken two days and quite a bit of money that I don't have right now.

2) I fully intended to cover that debate and I was very enthusiastic about it -- heck, I was looking forward to hanging out at some of my old haunts in Baltimore and looking up a few long-lost friends while I was there. I thought it was a great opportunity for the candidates to really get out there in their own voices to a primarily African-American audience, but evidently not too many of them shared my enthusiasm.

3) I obviously am not privy to the internal calculus that resulted in so many top-tier Republicans walking away from the Morgan State venue, particularly in the absence of a good reason. However, in my opinion it is a slap in the face to every African-American Republican in Maryland who worked their butts off to get Michael Steele as close to the Senate as he came, in the face of enormous and entrenched and underhanded oppositon and a lot of dirty tricks and slimy politics. I'd like to remind people that one of the founders of Brilliant Corners Research and Strategies, who infamously helped to choreograph the back strategy to *destroy* and *discredit* Mike Steele, Cornell Belcher, is a semi-regular on National Public Radio.

This was a golden opportunity for a lot of powerful Republicans to say something about that on PBS -- in Baltimore -- and they all dropped the ball. Here was a pretty secretive internal DNC subcontractor publicly commissioned by Howard Dean, working to destroy and discredit the Senate campaign of the most talented, qualified and promising Black Republican Maryland has ever fielded for the seat. Apparently after Belcher, et. al. worked Steele over with a Spiked Pipe™, they *really* got Howard Dean's attention and respect. And none of our "big" guys even bother to show up at Morgan State a couple of years later to talk to the press.

That's pathetic.

The fact that our major Republican candidates have decided to skip out on a debate hosted by NPR's Tavis Smiley at an historically Black university is a travesty. I've never been so disappointed in this Republican field as a group as I am about this issue. Even the CEO of Wal-Mart has appeared on the Tavis Smiley show to talk about his company, address concerns and objections, answer tough questions, and present himself and his company to Smiley's audience and let them make up their own minds. It's a real pity so many of our prospective Presidents aren't willing to do the same. Don't tell me the CEO of Wal-Mart isn't as busy as any of these guys.

Especially since so many of them are going to be in Washington just a few days later at the Defending the American Dream Summit, (which I still might be able to make, fingers crossed, I'm registered for it and might be able to swing it) I hope someone gets to ask them in person why they did not attend the debate at Morgan State. I could better understand this apparent lack of interest if some realistic explanation for so many of our most exciting candidates not showing up was offered; so far, I haven't heard anything.

Have you?