We have had yet another online debate (YAOD), and once again, the Democratic candidates have been first to participate, with the Republicans nowhere in sight.
As the guy who was all hot and bothered about the YouTube debate snub, let me add a dose of reality to this discussion. The Republican debate isn't happening because the Huffington Post and Slate are Yahoo's chief co-sponsors. Something like 44 of 53 Slate staffers openly declared their preference for John Kerry in the last election. Nothing more needs to be said about Arianna's current political leanings.
Until Yahoo! thinks to allow conservative sites like Red State, Townhall, or National Review Online to sponsor a Republican debate just like liberal sites were able to sponsor a Democratic debate, this debate is going nowhere, and Yahoo's efforts to get the Republicans to participate are for naught.
Don't forget that earlier this year some Republican candidates wore their refusal to participate in a Huffington-sponsored debate as a badge of honor. I can't say that I blame them. It certainly doesn't help things that one of their featured interviewers is Bill Maher.
Republicans were wrong to initially skip the YouTube debate because they had already participated in other CNN debates, and their reluctance looked like a snub directed at YouTube and the Internet more broadly. HuffPo and Slate aren't utilities like Google/YouTube, but are center-left journals of opinion Republicans occasionally write for. Republican candidates of yesteryear would not have been shamed for not participating in a debate sponsored by The New Republic and The Nation, and rightly so.
So, while Yahoo! no doubt has the best intentions, their decision to accept only liberal sponsors was a poison pill that makes them look more partisan than they are, and makes efforts at instituting "balance" through a Republican debate look like little more than a charade.
For its part, conservative media must be more proactive about initiating online initiatives surrounding the '08 presidential race, even those that require bipartisan support. The humbling reality is that even those online debate ideas that do gain conservative support are usually started by liberals. We should be the ones setting the agenda more often.
The Huffington Post in particular has been very aggressive about owning the space for Web 2.0 innovation in the Presidential race. They were recently embroiled in another controversy surrounding the all-ClintonObama-all-the-time OffTheBus, a HuffPo-sponosored citizen journalism initiative that recently added a third liberal editor after a number of folks blew the whistle the first time. They also bought FundRace, a fundraising map mashup that first made its appearance as an independent site in the 2004 election.
If I didn't know any better, I would almost think that HuffPo is purposefully trying to make Republicans look inept technologically by playing with willing big media partners on key Web 2.0 projects and then muscling conservatives out of the picture.
Good post Patrick, and I agree.
I urged Yahoo! to wake up and smell the conservative roses back in April, and even had some stats to back it up.
No balance. No debate. Period.
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David All
http://davidallgroup.com
http://techRepublican.com
http://slatecard.com
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Patrick:
Are you saying that presidential candidates should only take questions from people who like them, or people who are ostensibly neutral?
Frankly, I would have a lot of respect for a candidate who sat down for an interview with an ideological opposite. I can't quite see why that is so threatening. Maybe it doesn't make much sense during a primary contest, but independents can vote in lots of state primaries, don't forget.
As for the Yahoo/HuffPo/Slate mashup thing (it's not really a debate by the way), why the fear of Bill Maher? Because he likes Ron Paul? Republicans go on the Daily Show, why not take a few questions from Bill Maher?
Lastly, and on a personal note, I should say that I am close friends with Marc Cooper, the new editor of OfftheBus, and he's hardly a liberal. Not many liberals called on Bill Clinton to resign in 1998, to give you just one example of Marc's independence of thinking.
I know we live in a highly polarized time, but I'd like to think that we judge these kinds of political/journalistic projects by what they do. OfftheBus is about breaking from the pack mentality and horserace narrative that drives most mainstream (center, left and right) coverage of our interminable presidential election, and about tapping citizen journalists to help tell a broader story about the race. It's way too early to stamp it as a "liberal" stalking horse, IMHO.
The Republican debate isn't happening because the Huffington Post and Slate are Yahoo's chief co-sponsors.
Who told you that?
BTW, do you guys like Ron Paul's new fundraising thermometer (kinda like Dean's bat only cooler)? It went live at 5PM ET yesterday and it already shows over $152,000 raised. Not bad. I don't think any other candidate is doing anything like it, are they?
Micah, I tend to agree with your general sentiment -- a strong candidate should be comfortable answering questions from a political opponent. But Patrick is merely describing the reality. Campaigns don't go out of their way to collaborate with their critics, and this shouldn't be a surprise.
Moreover, I don't recall that you had any comment on the canceled Democratic debate that was to be on Fox News. (I searched Google, and couldn't find anything either.) If the Dems hadn't bugged out on that one -- according to the demands of online activists, no less -- I think you'd have a stronger case. Now it's tit-for-tat, which gives Republican candidates all the cover they need to send their condolences.
Oh, and I think Marc Cooper is an interesting writer, but just saying he is "hardly a liberal" is incomplete. He is certainly a lefty, albeit an iconoclast. Clinton faced criticism not just from Republicans, but from pundits on the left who put ideology above partisanship.
Blog P.I. - Putting the blogosphere under a magnifying glass.
Frankly, I would have a lot of respect for a candidate who sat down for an interview with an ideological opposite. I can't quite see why that is so threatening. Maybe it doesn't make much sense during a primary contest, but independents can vote in lots of state primaries, don't forget.
Whatever happened to that Dem Fox News debate? Oh yeah, now I remember.
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David All
http://davidallgroup.com
http://techRepublican.com
http://slatecard.com
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OfftheBus is about breaking from the pack mentality and horserace narrative that drives most mainstream (center, left and right) coverage of our interminable presidential election, and about tapping citizen journalists to help tell a broader story about the race. It's way too early to stamp it as a "liberal" stalking horse, IMHO.
Their headlines at this writing:
Marc Cooper: Labor Pains for John Edwards
To Campaign or Not to Campaign - Florida's Latest Controversy (about the Fla. Dem primary)
Prez Candidates Off Key on New Orleans (mentions one Republican, Tancredo, and Big Three Dems)
ActBlue - Putting The "D" Back in Democracy
Zogby Quietly Praises Obama, Richardson
Pushing the Bounds of Etiquette at an Obama Rally
What's in a Word Anyway? (about the Dem field)
Evangelical, and for Obama
From the Obama Grassroots: House Party Saturday
The Old and New Clinton Clash Again
Iowa: Romney Tries Campaigning by Committee (OK... the ONE headline about a Republican)
Iowa: Former Iowa Democratic Party Chair Endorses Obama
Nevada: On Dennis Kucinich's Nevada Visit Last Week
California: No Dirty Tricks -The Movie (from the left leaning Courage Campaign)
I have to agree with the commenters who said that, while there's no harm in taking questions from your ideological opposite, to subject yourself to getting pounded by somebody who will never even listen to what you have to say is dumb. It's why Democrats urged our candidates not to go on FAUX Noise.
I think it's unfortunate that we can have more civil debates, more real questions, and more real answers. I hate the attack-dog atmosphere in our media and our political sphere.
I also think it's a mistake to equate all Democrats with liberals and all Republicans (as David All did in a recent post when he used the terms interchangeably) with conservatives. I know several Republicans who have quit the party because they feel it's gone too far to the right, and more than a few Democrats who are about to do the same--and for the same reason.
Arianna Huffington was a Republican for years. I was a registered Libertarian. Now we're both Democrats. I can't speak for Arianna, but I don't think the extreme polarization we're seeing in politics is good for our country.
For what it's worth, I didn't agree with the Democratic boycott of the Fox debate. Democratic candidates and spokespeople still go on Fox all the time, and the way to combat bad speech is with more good speech, not less.
As for Marc Cooper, I think he's going to be pretty even-handed in his coverage of both sides. He's an independent thinker, not a "pundit on the left" who puts "ideology above partisanship."
To be sure, as Patrick points out with his snapshot of what stories Off the Bus is headlining at the moment, it doesn't look all that even-handed. But I don't think they have to strive for some kind of objective, mythical balance in their coverage. I thought we all finally agreed to admit that everyone brings their biases to their writing and the solution is to be open and trust readers to be intelligent enough to factor that in.
But I don't think they have to strive for some kind of objective, mythical balance in their coverage. I thought we all finally agreed to admit that everyone brings their biases to their writing and the solution is to be open and trust readers to be intelligent enough to factor that in.
Here, here. I'm there when it comes to being transparent about biases.
But here's the thing. It would be one thing if liberal OffTheBus correspondents went to Republican events and trashed them. I could deal with that. But they aren't even trying to go off the beaten path. It's coverage for the Democratic cocoon.
OffTheBus supporters like Jay Rosen, you and others have presented it as a bi-partisan or multi-partisan (but not non-partisan) solution to campaign coverage. When we raised this issue the first time, they said we shouldn't worry because it's an open platform. Well, the actual work product so far vindicates those concerns. I don't think that Zack et al. have purposely shut out conservatives, but the presence of three liberals and zero conservatives at the helm (not to mention Arianna's sponsorship) sends a pretty clear signal to would-be conservative contributors.
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A Web 2.0/Silicon Valley Conspiracy?
I appreciate all the links you provide throughout the post, but where are the links which show that Yahoo didn't invite any conservative sites to participate, or that they flat out didn't accept them? At the end you posit that HuffPo was "muscling conservatives out of the picture". Really? I'd love to see the sources documenting that.