Hillary Clinton is calling on Democratic National Committee Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz to allow the party’s three candidates to participate in a newly announced New Hampshire debate.
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Now Clinton and O’Malley have both said they’ll attend, but the Sanders campaign says it won’t because of a threat by the DNC to bar candidates from future debates if they attend this one.
All three of the major campaigns reacted positively, although only Martin O’Malley definitively said that he would participate.
Tthe largest newspaper in New Hampshire and MSNBC have added a Democratic primary debate to the schedule.
The DNC has sanctioned six debates and said in a statement Tuesday night it plans to “reconvene” with the candidates after voting in Iowa and New Hampshire to talk about further debates. The moderators would be NBC News’ Chuck Todd and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
McQuaid told The Huffington Post that he “can’t imagine that the Democratic candidates, post-Iowa, would want to be seen as breaking with a New Hampshire tradition”. Sanders is happy to have more debates but we are not going to schedule them on an ad hoc basis at the whim of the Clinton campaign. The Clinton campaign has said that if all three campaigns agree to participate in the debate, the DNC would have to sanction it.
“We are grateful that the Union Leader and NBC have heard the voices of New Hampshire voters who have advocated loud and clear for a final debate since the summer”, the group New Hampshire Debates wrote. “We are glad to partner with MSNBC to ensure Granite Staters have the information they need to make a critical decision on February 9”.
She’s pushed back on those attacks by asserting that this cycle’s debates have set party records for viewership and provides a balance between giving candidates national airtime with debates and them ample time to hit the trail. “Our three major candidates are already scheduled to appear on the same stage next week for the New Hampshire Democratic Party dinner on February 5th”.
There have been signs recently that the Clinton campaign regretted not pressing the DNC for more debates.
Since November, 145,940 people have signed Democracy for America petitions demanding the DNC hold more presidential debates.
Hillary Clinton only wants an additional debate because the “dynamics of the race have changed and Sen”.
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For months, O’Malley and some of Sanders’ supporters have claimed that the national committee is rigging the schedule to benefit Clinton, scheduling fewer debates to avoid undermining her national lead in the polls.
