The medium is the massage
The Hutchinson campaign is out with a release today saying that because Tim Pawlenty wouldn't participate, "the Minnesota Hospital Association and Minnesota Health and Housing Alliance today rescinded their invitation to present the three major party-endorsed candidates at their annual meeting in Brainerd on September 22. "
As I said at a Policy and a Pint forum in July, I personally think that candidates should be required to participate in X number of debates in exchange for getting their name on the ballot in the first place and I don't really quite understand why groups bow to the campaigns and let them stir the drink.
Maybe this wasn't a "premier debate" or maybe it was. I don't know. It's odd, when you get right down to it, that on the one hand any candidate would blow off spending limits so that he or she can buy more TV time to get more exposure, and at the same time, bags out of a debate in which, presumably, he'd get more exposure.
Yeah, yeah, I know. The candidates are trying to control the message. But frankly, when groups cancel entire debates because one candidate won't show up, they play right into the candidate's hand.
Have the debate anyway. And if the TV stations and radio stations have any interest at all in being courageous dispensers of the truth, they'll broadcast it anyway. And all during the debate, mention why not all the candidates are there. How's that for exposure?
To me, it's like when someone responds to a question before I do a story (or before I did a story when I was a working journalist) with a "no comment." They used to think if they didn't comment, I wouldn't run the story. Crazy.
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