Apparently, Patrick Ruffini [1] is worried. I think, needlessly.
Over the last few hours, I’d been hearing buzz that GOP candidates were going wobbly on the CNN/YouTube debate. I was dismissive. Given the huge earned media hit the Democrats got this week, the fact that even the highly partisan questioners acquitted themselves better than Chris Matthews did in the first debate, and the sponsorship of the powerful Republican Party of Florida, I didn’t think the GOP candidates would make the political mistake of passing up it up.
Says Pat:
This is a big mistake. The Democrats are afraid to answer questions from Big Bad Fox News Anchors, and the Republicans are afraid to answer questions from regular people. Which is worse?
First of all, Patrick, CNN is not “regular people”. Given their lack of ratings, it could be fairly said that CNN is not people at all.
The ratings for the Democrats on CNN/YouTube were embarrassingly low, even at the outset… and it didn’t help that the program itself was a yawner. It was to the point where more than one pundit suggested that the Democrats were going to have to seriously consider appearing on Fox, having tried to attract attention everywhere else, and failing miserably. There is no reason to suggest that the Republicans are going to fare any better trying the same trick.
Add to that, the history of CNN is one of distinct Democrat party bias, and one can hardly blame the Republicans for dropping this turkey. There’s nothing to gain, and lots to lose. There’s no point in bothering with it.
As to Patrick’s reaction, I’m not sure what’s driving that. My only advice to Patrick, is “Son, calm yourself.” (Or is that clam yourself?)
This early in the race, such an exposure does not matter in the grand scheme. Such things are simply not important to the average American, just now. Given a little while, that situation will undoubtedly change. However, this early on in the race, the biggest ally that Republicans have is Democrats in office. Let their bumbling, let their corruption, let their efforts to force the US into a surrender, let their inability to perform, do our work for us. When it gets closer to election time, we stand up and say without irony…. “There’s a better way”.