Tuesday, November 20, 2007

2008 Debate Locations Lean Southern - New Orleans Whines

The New York Times reports:

The Commission on Presidential Debates has picked Oxford, Miss.; St. Louis; Nashville; and Hempstead, N.Y., as the sites of the presidential and vice-presidential debates in the general election campaign next year.

New Orleans took offense at its omission, with a leader of one Louisiana advocacy group saying she had been told that the city had not recovered sufficiently from Hurricane Katrina to act as host of such an event. New Orleans was one of 16 finalists and has attracted major conventions since the hurricane devastated much of the city more than two years ago.

...

The debates have become a huge traveling road show, with a cast of 4,000 extras from the worlds of politics and the news media. In the case of Oxford, which has only 700 hotel rooms, overnight visitors will be bused to Tupelo, Miss., and Memphis.

In addition to Oxford, where the first presidential debate is to be held Sept. 26 at the University of Mississippi, presidential debates are scheduled for Belmont University in Nashville on Oct. 7 and Hofstra University in Hempstead on Oct. 15. The vice-presidential debate is scheduled for Washington University in St. Louis on Oct. 2.

The omission of New Orleans drew a sharp reaction from Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, who said the commission had "lost sight of the public interest it was chartered to serve."

It is general knowledge that Louisiana Democrats are corrupt, but after failing to attract their own convention, why would they think they own the Commission on Presidential Debates too?

More importantly, if geography is the big issue, why aren't there any debates in the West?

Three of the four locations, in three contiguous southern states, are no more than 370 miles apart - close enough to all be in the same state. The locations represent the deep interior of the Confederacy, plus a suburb of New York City.

3 comments:

April said...

General Knowledge!

mamad said...

According to a news report here in Spokane, one of the University in the area was on the list for a Vice Presidential debate. The asked to be taken off. They said they could not afford to be a host.

Nick said...

Thanks for the tip. As I have noted here, the university refused the VP debate because they think they are too good for anything but a presidential debate.