Obama to not participate in non-DNC debates until December

First off, this is risky move, but I'll get to that in a minute.  The Obama Campaign officially announced on Saturday that their candidate would skip the rest of the Democratic debates until at least December:

In a posting on the campaign's website,Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe said that the eight additionaldebates to which his candidate has already agreed are sufficient, andthat Obama wants to spend time talking to voters, rather than preparingfor and participating in debates. "Unfortunately, we simply cannot runthe kind of campaign we want and need to, engaging with voters in theearly states and February 5, if our schedule is dictated by dozens offorums and debates," Plouffe said in his statement.

Like all the leading campaigns, Obama's team has felt somefrustration at having their schedules tied up by the debates and forumsalready held. They have had to share the stage in those events with sixor seven other candidates, allowing the candidates only a limitedperiod to make an impression.

Following true to form, a source close to the Hillary Clinton threw a cheap shot in Obama's direction:

The spinning has already started. A source close to the Clintoncampaign fired a zinger off quickly: "So he'll meet with dictators butnot the black caucus or seniors in Iowa?"

Wow, it's almost as if that line was written by Karl Rove.

Now to the decision itself.  I brainstormed the positives and negatives of this decision.  You all can decide for yourselves whether this was smart.

Reasons he should skip:

• If Obama is really trying to defy the establishment and campaign from the ground-up, then attending debates that are hosted by special interest groups is self-defeating.  He needs to connect to real people instead.
• Obama does not want to over-expose himself on television.  If Obama's campaign wants a surge of good media exposure, they had better start that effort in December.  If they do it too early, the hype might die down by Thanksgiving, and he will have suffered a similar fate as Howard Dean.
• There have been too many debates anyway.  They drain campaign money to fly to the destination, and don't make much of a difference anyway.

Reasons he should attend every debate:

• Quite frankly, Obama is not the best debater.  He needs to perfect those skills so that in the future, whether in December of this year or during the general election, he will be experienced enough in that kind of format and be less likely to make a verbal gaffes that could cost him votes.
• Not attending debates hosted by the Black Caucus, AARP and other organizations can be considered as a snub.  It might hurt Obama's chances of picking up big key endorsements.

The folks over at Raising Kaine like the move.

Comments

[Arlen]

Todd: the title of this entry and the premise of the post is wrong. Obama has committed to participating in all the DNC-sanctiond debates, which include several before December (the NH September one, October one in Philly, November in Vegas, etc).

Also, if you read the memo that Plouffe sent out, he says that he's skipping the debates in favor of retailing in Iowa and NH and SC and Nevada, on the theory that that is a better use of his time (the campaign cited ratings that showed he has impressed audiences in debates recently).

Finally, it's not entirely clear that he'll skip the CBC/CNN debate... I got in touch with Marc Ambinder who was the first to report this, and he says he believes Obama is still committed to attending it.

[Arlen]

Just wanted to note that Obama's campaign has just announced that they will be participating in the CBC debate in January.

[Chief Editor: Todd]

Thanks for pointing that out, Arlen. I changed the title a little. And like you mentioned, it's not 100% that Obama won't attend other debates either. For example, there is the ABC debate tomorrow that he will attend (to my knowledge, at least).

[Chief Editor: Todd]

Yeah, it does appear that Obama will appear in every late-December and January debate.

[Arlen]

Here is a list of the debates Obama has argeed to participate in until January, when he could decide to participate in other debates. Note that he's already participated in 19 forums and 7 debates (it'll be 8 tomorrow).

[Chief Editor: Todd]

Thanks for the list, Arlen! I've been trying to figure out when all the DNC debates are. I think I might post this in the Radar for Sunday morning.