Bloomberg Wants To Host 1st Town Hall
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, Bloomberg, Debates, Democrats, McCain, New York, New York City, Republicans
(UPDATE: Both campaigns rejected the offer because they don’t want to limit it to just one network. Hmmm…)
Now this is a pretty brilliant move…
The guy who has some of the deepest pockets in the world, and could be a VP for either candidate, wants to use that leverage.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and ABC News on Sunday proposed that the presidential nominees hold a joint town hall as a 90-minute network special from Federal Hall, on Wall Street in Lower Manhattan.Such a joint meeting would be a new twist in the rituals of a national campaign, and would help both candidates promote the message that they want to help put an end to a divisive era in national politics.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has challenged Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to a series of 12 joint town halls, which would be a more casual version of the formal debates that are a traditional part of general-election campaigns. The partners propose ABC’s Diane Sawyer as a moderator.
Obama’s campaign has indicated interest but has committed to nothing.
My guess is that these town halls will happen. Maybe not as many as McCain wants, but quite a few of them and that’s a ultimately a great thing for democracy.
This entry was posted on Sunday, June 8th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, Bloomberg, Debates, Democrats, McCain, New York, New York City, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 8th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Excellent!
June 8th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
They’ll only happen if McCain agrees to the longer format, I don’t see Obama giving McCain any advantages, no he’ll want to force another “green speech” out of McCain, like the one last tuesday