The 411 on Tonight's Debate

The debate tonight at Mizzou between the College Democrats and the College Republicans may not happen afterall. I thought it was strange that the CRs would accept a debate after turning it down for months, so I inquired of their Vice President, Marcus Bowen, what was up. He told me:

"I have heard a few rumors that the the Democrat group at Mizzou has planned an upcoming event which uses our name in the title, but as I said earlier, we are not affiliated with, nor have we helped plan, nor have we accepted any invitation to said event. College Republicans are a very busy, professional organization, and we certainly don't have time to police the the Democrat group on wheather [sic] they choose to use our name in the title of an event that they are hosting."

Iiiiiiinteresting. I got a response from Mark Buhrmester, President of the Mizzou Democrats as well.

"Their assertions that they've only heard rumors, or that they don't have the time to check up on what we're doing are very misleading. I've invited them directly numerous times. They had no reason to rely on rumors nor did they have any need to check up on my organization. I will forward you the emails that I've sent them."

Buhrmester emailed the CR leadership the invitation on October 11, two weeks ago, and sent two follow-up emails as well. Buhrmester argues that the only reason he got from the CRs for not debating is their busy schedule. The idea, he said, was to organize and publicize it to make it as easy as possible for them to attend. As of a couple days ago, he was still hopeful that they would come.

Bowen shot back, saying, "Once again I will say that Thursday's event is a hoax, and it has been a disgusting publicity stunt from the beginning."

It seems to me as though this was not a publicity stunt, but an honest attempt to create a debate. The follow-up emails prove that, in my opinion. I can see how someone could construe this as a publicity stunt, but this was not a stunt of any sort until the CRs declined the invitation. And it has not been made apparent to me whether they actually declined the invitation or ignored it.

At any rate, the "debate" is scheduled to begin in less than 2 hours. We'll see what happens, if anything.