If you follow Georgia politics, you’ve no doubt heard that the GA-GOP canceled a planned debate, which was to be televised by CNN, after Mitt Romney and Ron Paul decided not to attend:
The March 1 GOP presidential debate in Georgia has been canceled, in a sign of candidate fatigue after nearly two dozen of the televised showdowns that have been so crucial in shaping the Republican presidential campaign.
CNN confirmed Thursday that it will pull the plug on the debate, the final one before Super Tuesday on March 6, after Mitt Romney’s campaign said he would not take part. Before CNN’s decision, the campaign of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) said he planned to sit it out, and Rick Santorum’s aides said he was likely to skip it, too.
“Without full participation of all four candidates, CNN will not move forward with the Super Tuesday debate,” CNN said in a statement.
[...]
In dropping out, the Romney campaign cited the 20 debates it had already done.“Gov. Romney will be spending a lot of time campaigning in Georgia and Ohio ahead of Super Tuesday,” spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in a statement. “With eight other states voting on March 6, we will be campaigning in other parts of the country and unable to schedule the CNN Georgia debate.” ”
Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley offered a similar explanation for his candidate’s hesitance. “Now is when we need to go out, let people see the vision and meet voters.”
Oh well. I can certainly understand the way the candidates feel about debates at this point. It’s not like we haven’t had plenty of them, and there two more currently on the books in the next month or so. I’m actually disappointed about this. Admittedly, I stopped watching the GOP debates for the most part at the end of the fall; but I had already been promised media credentials to cover this for Peach Pundit, the state’s most-read non-traditional media political blog.
