Republican "Scheduling Conflicts"

The Republican Party's group of presidential hopefuls are writing off 30-40% of the voting population. Why bother showing up to a debate hosted by black or latino constituents? Is it going to get you anywhere? An African-American or latino voting Republican would be like chickens voting for Colonel Sanders... and yet, some will still do it.

The leading contenders for the Republican nomination have indicated they will not attend the "All American Presidential Forum" organized by black talk show host Tavis Smiley, scheduled for Sept. 27 at Morgan State University in Baltimore and airing on PBS. Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) all cited scheduling conflicts in forgoing the debate. The top Democratic contenders attended a similar event in June at Howard University.

...Making matters worse, some Republicans believe, is that the decision to bypass the Morgan State forum comes after all top GOP candidates save McCain declined invitations this month to a debate on Univision, the most-watched Hispanic television network in the United States. The event was eventually postponed.

"What's the win?" said the adviser, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "Why would [the candidates] go into a crowd where they're probably going to be booed?"

Even Newt Gingrich --NEWT GINGRICH!-- who basically made the Republican Party what it is today , got into the act when he said, "For Republicans to consistently refuse to engage in front of an African American or Latino audience is an enormous error. ...I see no excuse -- this thing has been planned for months, these candidates have known about it for months. It's just fundamentally wrong. Any of them who give you that scheduling-conflict answer are disingenuous. That's baloney."

Forum host Tavis Smiley: "When you reject every black invitation and every brown invitation you receive, is that a scheduling issue or is it a pattern? I don't believe anybody should be elected president of the United States if they think along the way they can ignore people of color. That's just not the America we live in."

Well Tavis, that may not be the American you or I live in, but it's definitely the America they've been living in for quite a while now.

Hey Republican candidates: I can't wait to support you! "The check's in the mail."


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