Republicans balking at CNN/YouTube debate

CNN and YouTube recently hosted a ground-breaking South Carolina debate featuring all eight Democratic presidential candidates taking questions directly from potential voters. A similar format is scheduled for the Republicans in Florida 9/17/07, but much like the Democrats have been with Fox News Channel, the Republicans seem allergic to the CNN/YouTube format.

So far, only two Democrats have agreed to a FNC September debate, Joe Biden (D-DE) and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), and CNN/YouTube only has two Republicans, John McCain (R-AZ) and Ron Paul (R-TX). The Washington Post reported that Rudy Giulinia (R-NY) was unlikely to attend and that Mitt Romney (R-MA) had serious reservations about the format. A Republican National Committee member is worried about a general snub of the event. He said it's one thing to snub reporters, who many Republicans think have a liberal bias anyway, but he didn't think it was a very good idea to snub actual citizens.

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