Conservative Bloggers Call on GOP to Attend YouTube Debate
The Republicans are getting their heads handed to them on the Internet. In 2004, John Dean raised far more than the incumbent President did on the Internet, and in the 2008 race, the top three Democrats have raised more than double the amount of the top three Republicans. Ideological fervor is also directed on the left, though many suspect this is a product of an unpopular war and a Republican Presidency, and that a Democratic White House would lead to a growing GOP presence. Maybe so; certainly there’s nothing inherently liberal about YouTube, which has been used much more effectively by conservatives than liberals in Europe .
Conservative bloggers such as Michelle Malkin and Andrew Sullivan, and Republican e-operative Patrick Ruffini, have condemned the Republican candidates desertion in the face of the Internet as being hopelessly out of the touch with the times, and making the GOP candidates seem like clueless old men who only use the Internet to download Johnny Matthis songs...okay, that’s sort of a paraphrase. Anyway, many conservative bloggers seem to think dissing the Web will cost the Republicans in votes, money, and organization on the Internet.
But the Republicans who would lead the war on terrorism are terrified of being asked questions that don’t come from the Beltway. Mitt Romney has argued that being expected to answer questions posed by, by regular human beings is “demeaning” to him as a political-type person. And both Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney have claimed that they had scheduled fundraisers for the day of the...what was the day of the debate? Well, whatever the day is, they’re booked up with fundraisers all night long. Or they will be, just as soon as they can make a call to schedule a fundraiser.
This pretext is growing embarrassing as increasing pressure comes on Giuliani and Romney to not be complete wimps, wusses, sissies, or thumb-sucking yellow-bellied lily-livered sniveling cowards: For them, in fact, to agree to a debate. They both claim that they’re open to debating, providing they can find a free moment in the next six months that they haven’t previously committed to fundraising. But apparently they’re having a tough time finding a moment in their schedule not already devoted to begging for dollars. And who knows, maybe those two are spending little of their time campaigning, but enormous amounts of time fundraising.
But if it’s true, it’s just sad. And if it’s a pretext, then the top Republicans are too small to be President.
