On June 9, Hillary Clinton was appearing at a campaign event near Ames, Iowa. The exact location was the Prairie Moon Winery. Larry Reinsch was able to be recognized for a question, and he asked if she would participate in a general election presidential debate (if she is the Democratic nominee) that includes all presidential candidates who are on the ballot in enough states to theoretically win the election.
She said, “Well, I would certainly be open to doing it. I…you know, I might, uh…there might be a couple of people that I would be a little bit reluctant about, but, you know, I am generally open to that. You know in New York we have a lot of parties; we don’t just have the Democratic and Republican Party, we have a lot of other parties. And, you, I believe in…in free and open debate. Uh, so I will certainly consider it. I’m not going to make a 100% commitment, because it’s a hypothetical, and I try to stay away from hypotheticals. But I take your point and I think that it’s a very important one that we need to get as many people involved as possible, and that means having a lot of opinions out there that people can respond to.”
Larry Reinsch’s excellent activism is exactly what Rock the Debates is hoping to encourage. It is hoped that Reinsch and other activists will be able to the other Republican and Democratic contenders the same question.
Well it is encouraging that Mr. Reinsch was able to ask
“The question” of one of the first tier candidates. Now
that it was asked I expect that very soon all of the
candidates will have an answer for it (just in case).
It sure is un-classy of her to hedge so badly since her
husband supported the inclusion of Ross Perot in 1992.
When she says that she would be reluctant about it must
be someone she thinks could hurt her like Nader was
suppossed to have done to Gore in 2000.