Saturday, April 19, 2008

Clay Pulls Plug On Obama-Clinton Debate Offer

Gary Mayor Rudy Clay first invited Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama to square off in a debate at the Genesis Center in downtown Gary prior to the Indiana primary. After Sen. Clinton accepted the offer, Clay withdrew it. "A debate could get off track into other issues," Clay told the Gary Post-Tribune. Clay is backing Sen. Obama. Apparently, Obama's campaign doesn't want to participate in any more debates now that the media has finally decided it's time to start asking some tough questions of him. Yeah, it should matter that Obama chose to join the church of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and stayed there for more than 20 years, that Obama is friends with anti-American terrorists like William Ayers, and that he thinks small town folks are just bitter people who "cling to their guns and religion." It doesn't look like Indiana will get its own debate between the two candidates.

Does anyone find irony in the call of Democratic national chairman Howard Dean and other leading Democrats to bring this nomination battle to an end before elections have been held and the votes are counted in all the states? Wasn't it those same folks who accused Republicans of being undemocratic for not allowing all the votes to be "recounted" in Florida before the 2000 presidential race was declared in favor of Bush? At least the Republicans waited until all the votes had been counted at least once before asking to end the process.

11 comments:

artfuggins said...

Who would want to debate with a mean negative person who tells lies about anything that will help her get elected....fortunately at this point, nothing will help her get elected.

max said...

Obama doesn't debate well and they will put the kibosh on anything that isn't his usual scripted motivational seminar motif.

We are going to get an empty suit that makes us feel really, really good....for awile.

Kumbaya, ya'll

Sean Shepard said...

We're talking about Democrats, right?

Free speech is great ... unless you disagree with them. You'll then be promptly shouted down.

Everybody should get to vote and have it count ... unless things won't turn out their way.

Pro-choice ... except when it comes to opting out of social security, who you can or can't fire for any reason, what school you can use your tax money to send your kids to ... but kill your baby with a late-term abortion , oh yeah, your choice.

Hillary kicked Obama's a$$ the other night in the debate but fuggins is right ... Hillary will say and do just about anything to get elected.

So we can worry that Hillary is lying or we can be scared to death that Obama is actually telling the truth. He is far left of even Hillary.

artfuggins said...

Sean..where was your belief that every vote should count in 2000 in Florida or in Ohio in 2004...or does that just true if results dont turn out YOUR way.

Unknown said...

This isn't rocket science folks. Obama is a poor debater and at his best giving prepared speeches. Obama has taken a lead in the state. Obama isn't debating because it isn't to his advantage.

Sean Shepard said...

Art - you make it sound like those races went "my way" ... tell me what way that is?

My perception of the Florida debacle in 2000 is that the punch card system was flawed because "chads" can come loose with handling of the ballot AND that there were clearly people who didn't know how to read the ballot who still voted.

Truth be told, I wish we could just skip the 2000 election all together and never have either Gore nor Bush in the White House as one was likely to be disasterous and the other, except for some tax cuts, definitely has been.

As for the 2004 Ohio vote I don't know enough of the details to comment.

History is replete with examples of poorly run elections, rigged votes or outright fraud regardless of which dictator or party is involved.

Unknown said...

Artfuggins,

A Democrat complaining about vote fraud? That's like Jesse James complaining about people committing bank robberies.

Why don't you read some history on American elections and tell us which party has the longer history of vote fraud, the Democrats or Republicans.

Rico43 said...

What happened it Florida, genius(artfuggins), is the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the Florida Supreme Court from determining the outcome of the election. Despite the atempts by the national media to call the state for Gore before the polls were even closed, each independent count gave the state to Bush. As far 2004 and Ohio are concerned: there were counties in southern Ohio that went 100% for Kerry. Sound legit to you? Grow up.

Rico43 said...

..."attempts"....

artfuggins said...

the hand count was never finished so none of us will ever know who really won.

IndyPaul said...

The Democratic candidates have been through 21 debates, and Obama has certainly shone in many of them. We in Indiana were able to watch all of them. This last meeting in Philadelphia was not so much a debate as a mugging rehash of peripheral issues. Such a spectacle is not in the interest of the voters, and the Clinton campaign will not dictate Obama's schedule. The Democratic nomination has all but been determined. This would be like critisizing McCain for not submitting to a debate with Huckabee prior to the Texas primary.

Dean, as well as Clinton supporters like McGovern & Frank have called on the supers to declare their intentions. These are, of course revered Democratic party members, who have every right to state their position on the nominating process of the party. Superdelegate votes, of course, are PART OF the nomination battle. As we all know by now, Clinton has no chance of upending Obama's lead in the pledged delegate count, representing the vote cast.

This is not comparable to the Supreme Court intervening to stop a recount process under Florida law where there was a .0001% margin in a contest decisive to the presidential election in 2000 - one of the worst and most corrupt decisions in U.S. Supreme Court history, leading to one of the worst presidencies despite the fact that the majority of citizens did not vote for him. A ridiculous analogy.