Nutroots muscle-flexing: Will the CBC cave, too?
When last we left you, the Nutroots had successfully shut down a scheduled debate in Nevada between the Democratic hopefuls for president because of their visceral, almost perverted (as in VERY weird) obsessive hatred for “Faux News” – in essence, they were able to use the shame card (their third favorite card – I’m sure you know what their first two favorites are) to get the candidates, one by one, to refuse to appear in the Fox-hosted debate.
Well, this time, their targets are the Congressional Black Caucus. Why? The AP reports:
WASHINGTON (AP) – Fox News, rejected by Democrats as host of a Nevada presidential debate, has a new debate partner.
The cable news network will co-sponsor primary debates for each party’s presidential field this fall in partnership with the Congressional Black Caucus Political Education and Leadership Institute.
The Democratic debate is scheduled for Sept. 23 in Detroit’s Fox Theater. The CBC Institute and Fox have yet to set a date and place for a planned Republican debate.
Democrats, under pressure from liberal activists earlier this year, canceled a Nevada debate that Fox was to co-sponsor. Democratic critics complained that the network displays a conservative bias in its news broadcasts.
The CBC Institute, a nonprofit group whose directors include members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Fox News announced their agreement Thursday.
Black Caucus officials made it clear that the size of the Fox News audience was more important than disputes over ideology.
“The CBC Institute is committed to presenting the presidential candidates to the broadest audience possible,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the chairman of the institute, said in a statement. “Collaborating with Fox News provides an opportunity to take this presidential election to millions of households.”
Michelle Malkin has the particulars on the Nutroot groups who are lobbying for the same outcome this time around. Note that both groups are playing the -yep, you guessed it – race card in an attempt to once again shame Democrats into severing any ties to “Faux.”
Their predictability has gone from laughable to just down right boring. I’m almost embrassed for them.
Almost.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. The last time around, John Edwards was the first to pull out of the Nevada debate, but this one is, of course, different and won’t be so simple to pull out of because you’ve got representatives of a must-keep voting bloc for Democrats parterning up with the most-hated-to-liberals network. The black vote is absolutely crucial for Democratic success in an election year and not one candidate running wants to tick off the CBC, nor black voters in general (well, perhaps with the exception of Dennis Kucinich).
If the CBC doesn’t pull out of their partnership with Fox for the debates, and the Dem candidates go ahead with the debate, that will make Edwards and co. look like the big hypocrites they are. If the candidates do pull out of the debate, they take a big risk at alienating a core group of voters in order to appease another core group of voters: the Nutroots. Decisions, decisions.
Should be fun to watch. I’m popping me a bag of buttery popcorn for this one. 