Belatedly realizing their error in partnering with Fox News for a debate, twenty-six members of the Congressional Black Caucus sent letters to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards requesting they rethink their decision to skip out on the debate.

Last month, under pressure from liberal activists, Obama, Clinton and Edwards, the front-runners in the Democratic presidential primary, announced that they would skip the debate scheduled for September because they consider Fox biased against Democrats.

Obama in particular has had a rocky relationship with Fox. His campaign froze out the conservative-leaning news network for a few weeks after it erroneously reported that Obama had received schooling at a radical madrassa — a Muslim school — during his youth in Indonesia.

Members of the Black Caucus say that by skipping the Fox debate, Obama and other candidates risk missing a chance to share their views on issues important to minority voters that are often given short shrift at other debates.
“Reconsider,” said CBC Institute Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), summing up the letter to Democratic presidential candidates. “Basically, it would be in your best interests to talk to the communities we represent.”

As is the way with most big political choices, the candidates are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Supporting Fox News by participating in the debate may anger the Democratic party, but, damn. It may look even worse to shun the CBC, even though most of them have already made that choice.

[TheHill]