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DNC Blacklisting of Fox News from Debates is a Strategic Mistake

posted by martyb on Monday March 11 2019, @10:02AM   
from the just-line-up-the-sights-on-your-toe-and-squeeeeeeze dept.

RandomFactor writes:

Here in the U.S., the presidential election season, like Christmas, seems to start earlier and earlier each time.

In keeping with this, the Democratic National Committee is making waves by announcing that it will exclude Fox News, which has the largest viewership of the major cable news networks by a considerable margin, from debate coverage of DNC presidential candidates.

Thomas Lifson outlines a number of reasons this may not be a good move.

One is that from a historical and strategy perspective:

Presidential debates inevitably favor the challengers. Trump can push them in that direction by agreeing to debates only if Fox News is included. That forces them to either accept FNC or have no debates at all. If they accept, that makes FNC the debate worth watching. The rest are discredited as Democrat "safe spaces,"

And it appears he has pounced and done exactly that from his twitter account:

Democrats just blocked @FoxNews from holding a debate. Good, then I think I’ll do the same thing with the Fake News Networks and the Radical Left Democrats in the General Election debates!

Really all either party has to do is A) not be crazy and/or B) keep their idiot mouths shut to win.

Neither of these seems to be in the cards dealt to either side, so it should be a heck of a ride.

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Original Submission

• Who cares? (Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Monday March 11 2019, @11:42AM

  by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Monday March 11 2019, @11:42AM (#812624) Journal

  Isn't this pretty much the status quo? I remember outlets like CNN, MSNBC, and PBS hosting the Democratic debates.

  I looked it up. In 2008, there was a debate [wikipedia.org] that lists "CNN, Fox News Channel, IPTV, MSNBC". All the rest were associated with a single network. In 2016, Fox News was going to host the 10th and final debate, but stuff happened [wikipedia.org]:

  Despite previously agreeing to a tenth debate in the state of California, before the last day of primary elections, Hillary Clinton declined to participate. As a result of this, the debate was cancelled. Bernie Sanders called it insulting to the people of California, the largest primary state.

  After it had been established that a California debate would not take place, Donald Trump offered a debate with Bernie Sanders ahead of the June 7th primary. The only condition for this debate was for the profits to be donated to a charity, which the candidates would agree on. Bernie Sanders accepted the offer; however, Donald Trump eventually declined to participate, stating there was no need to debate a candidate who would not win the Democratic nomination.

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