Flurry of Debates Continues Tonight
[Update] Liveblogging the Brown and Black Forum in the thread below. Join us for comments on the off chance you get the Sirius feed or have HDNET.
Update [2007-12-1 15:12:8 by Ross Smith]: Happening as I type, the "Heartland Presidential Forum" which is "not a debate" but is a three hour forum with the Democratic candidates being interviewed for 20 minutes each. Stream and preview. Long day for the Dems.
Tonight's "Black and Brown Presidential Forum" in Iowa is the second of a flurry of five debates in the thirteen days that began with Wednesday's GOP CNN/YouTube debate.
The DesMoines Register reports the basics of tonight's event which has been held quadrennially starting in 1984:
This year's edition will be at 7 p.m. [CST] at North High School in Des Moines, and will be telecast live nationally by HDNet, a high-definition television network. It will be simulcast in Iowa and surrounding states by cable company Mediacom's "Connections" channel. Sirius satellite radio also will carry it.
The forum moderators will be Michele Norris, host of National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" newsmagazine, and Ray Suarez, a senior correspondent for "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" on PBS.
In addition, newsman Dan Rather, who appeared with Ford and Campos, will be the host of a preview show on HDNet half an hour before the forum begins, and will conduct an analysis of it afterward.
Activists are questioning the fairness of tonight's event, claiming the organizers have favored Hillary Clinton. Daily Kos and Iowa Independent have details.
The debate schedule continues Tuesday, November 4 from 1-3pm CST with NPR's radio debate for Democrats.
The following week begins with the GOP Univision Debate Sunday, December 9 at the University of Miami (Florida). That debate, broadcast in Spanish and focused on issues of concern to Hispanics, was canceled earlier in the year when most of the GOP contenders refused to commit to it.
Wednesday and Thursday, December 12 and 13, the Republican and then the Democratic candidates will participate in debates sponsored by the Des Moines Register. These debates were originally to be held in early January, but were moved up when the Iowa caucuses were moved to January 3.
Democratic candidates were also scheduled to debate in Los Angeles on December 10 in a nationally televised debate on CBS which was canceled because of a strike by CBS news writers.
