That's easy. Now who is going to watch a PBS debate 14 months before an election?

It is a lose only proposition, especially if the venue is designed to be hostile to the candidates. The only way a candidate will get any attention is from a faux paux.

Republicans should NOT go to a PBS Political debate...because that will be the Last thing to happen...a Debate...

Unless they want to be Intro'd like Ahmadinejad was introduced, unless they want a Democratic talking points only Debate, unless they want to supply the Democratic Campaign "out takes" for another biased NY Times ad, they should pass on this one, like the Dems are passing on Fox.

If FOX is biased in the eyes of the Democrats, and should be avoided, then Tic for Tac on the Republican side.  We had a constant stream of Hillary on MSM last week, and a token PBS format doesn't nearly make up for the lopside coverage by the MSM on the Democratic side.

Make it Obvious to the most casual Observer.....MSM is pushing bias reporting, and republicans should not accept any leftovers thrown their way as an excuse for "balance".         

What good is a Free Press, if it is a False Press ?   David Foote  GoE

Sometimes I wonder if we are all on the same team. All my life republicans have been "reaching out" only to pull a nub back. These people are only looking for a "gotcha" moment. The only way republicans can break the democrats hold on the minority vote is to offer massive government payouts of taxpayer dollars and the candidates know it. To bad you people don't...

Look at the jena 6, we all know it is manufactured racism, they can't find white racists so they turn minority bigots into a white racist moment.

 Keep attacking the republican canidates for skipping obvious set-ups, Your doing a great job of it...

Did you even once, within the past six months, call the Democrats "cowards" for skipping the Fox debate? If so, might you want to either retract that epithet, or somehow explain to me just how Republicans ducking this debate is logically any different??
JMR

Rally online with fans of Dr. Ron Paul.

for the candidates to change their minds.  Well, if PBS wants a successful debate, attended by all the candidates, there's also enough time for them to guarantee a balanced panel.

Your idea of making imbalance part of their talking points brings it's own problems.  By doing that, the candidates would be in danger of appearing contentious or argumentative...and even if they didn't appear that way initially, an ego or ideologically driven panelist could easily create the perception.

Republicans too often try to take the "statesman" approach to politics, and look what has happened to President Bush with that approach.

This is a race-baiting set-up on a Liberal network (funded by taxpayer dollars) with an anti-Republican agenda. I take this snub of these government-funded Leftists as a positive thing for the GOP.

Let's say they did show up and  thereby allow Leftists the opportunity to play the race-card. They would get NO credit for it - they'd just be accused of attending out of fear of a backlash for not appearing.

What they should do is organize a debate, moderated by an RNC rep and maybe someone from the "Right-Wing media" - regarding how the candidates see race/minority/gender/immigration issues and invite the networks, and include PBS - and see if they cover it, and if so, how do they do it?

Point?  Screw the MSM.  Go directly to the people with the message that the GOP is for equality, as it always has been - unlike the Slavery/Jim Crow Anti-MLK Democrats who think that quotas even things out...etc.  Call out the Dems for their attitude that minorities are inferior and can't succeed without the help of Democrats and that the brand of "help" is really not help at all...

Going to a PBS debate in front of a hostile crowd who have the purpose of sand-bagging you is no way to get your message out.

   I agree that there is nothing to gain and everything to lose for the candidates.  Very few people, let alone just blacks, are going to watch a debate on PBS.  What people will know about this debate is what someone else says was said.

  The time for a GOP candidate to appear at a debate before a special interest group is during the general election when a democrat is asked the same questions so the two parties can debate.

  This notion that individual groups need their own presidential 'debates' about their 'issues' is a democrat world view.  Since the dems are not a national party they don't see 'Americans'.  They divide the country by getting people to see themselves as part of a special interest group not as individual Americans and then they assemble (pander) enough of these groups into a voting coalition to win an election.

The Republicans may have to resort to spending their money and holding their own debate with a panel of blacks that can ask the important questions.  They need to do this to show there are blacks that do not toe the Democrat line but also to show they have answers to the questions about black neighborhoods and specific class issues.  These questions would never be fairly asked in the PBS debate.   In setting up the debate, which should be held in a major inner-city, they need to make sure every Republican that appears anywhere in the media can recite the reasons the Republicans are forced to set up their own debate.  The main reason would have to be that it is the only way to get honest answers to the public and that the Republicans feel the black communities deserve a shot at the truth that Smiley and PBS will not give them.

Star Parker, Walter Williams, Bob Parks, Larry Elder..., just to name a few

Joy Behar is a racist and a bigot hiding behind comedy and being a "Jew" so to be reminded of comments she makes is a mistake unless one is going to be swayed by what bin Laden prattles on about.

People have to understand that the GOP is not fighting the last loosing battles. Why on earth waste time and money on a know nothing audience which is a minority in a growing minority. PBS has no audience and of that nil is black. One might as well debate at a sodomite convention where the audience are the 3 gays who will admit it is wrong.

One can not be led around by the mob, especially a mob which the Jack and Jill branch to the ghetto banger branch scorns PBS blacks.

This group has willingly enslaved themselves to democratic money and watched their families destroyed by it. They are on the way out and Republicans are completely correct in ignoring this group of snoots whose main concern in life is existing in 1860 and talking about Kwanza like it actually exists.

*HIC IACET ARTORIVS REX QVONDAM REXQVE FVTVRVS

Claiming scheduling conflicts won't do. In refusing to appear on Fox News for a debate, Democrats made clear that they fear other than creampuff questions and they jump to the commands of their party's brutish left wing. Why should Republican candidates display a like reluctance? The turndowns here are more devastating and disappointing. 

It's likely Republicans will get only loaded [Bryant] Gumbelisms from Tavis Smiley, statements of shaky opinion followed by a rise in tone suggestive of a question. I never understood why people did not point out that Mr. Gumbel had stated his off-base, jaundiced opinion, and the facts were this, this, and that. No doubt Mr. Smiley won't emulate C-SPAN's impartiality. Fine. It doesn't take much rhetorical deftness to nail a Gumbelian questioner and then inform others where the truth lies.

If Mr. Smiley asks about Jena, effective responses aren't difficult to make, especially since one knows that that subject is likely to come up. If one fears the PBS questioner and crowd, how could one handle a Presidential news conference, where any Republican will field questions from people strongly--often wrongly--opposed to one's policies?