A Democratic Presidential debate on Fox News is brilliant strategy

Most people here hate Faux News with a passion. But that doesn't matter. The Democratic Party isn't trying to sell itself to you. They could have had the debate on the Food Network and somebody would be screaming about bias in the media. Millions of voters watch Fox News, and many of them are normal people who like Fox for honest reasons. It can be entertaining and more fun than the more mainstream news. Not everyone who watches Fox is an evil reich winger. So I can easily imagine millions of people sitting down looking forward to O'Reilly yelling at some hapless guest, see the debate instead, and watch the candidates for two hours. Even if the candidates didn't win over many people, at least they were exposed to an audience who might not bother to watch a debate on C-Span or PBS. And a typical voter probably walked away thinking, "Hey, some of these guys aren't bad." So gripe all you want about the venue, but this was good for the party.

Other than that it was pretty tame.

If 5% of the usual Fox viewers watched and had their faith in the Bush regime shaken, then it was a huge victory.

If that debate succeeded in getting 1 out of every 20 people to stop and think then it was a great success.

And the other candidates too.

kicking the shit out of them. Not too brilliant.

Now they can say "I TOLD you we were fair and balanced; we even showed the Democratic debate."

You make a good point, however. Maybe this was a win/win situation for Faux and us.

If you didn't have any prejudices for or against Fox News, you would have thought they were a straight up news organization based on the hour and a half long debate.

even if the FAUX commentators spend the next two hours beating up on the candidates. People get to see our candidates and some of them are really good!

IN fact they're all miles and miles ahead of Bush as speakers. No matter what Tony Snow says. People can make their own judgements.

Then, if they are as naive as we might think they are, they get the ridicule and shame of the Democratic candidates who have nothing to contribute except criticism for George W Bush... But they might be more savvy than we give them credit for.....Naw!