Republicans Shun Debate, and Right Cries Out

NYT

When the leading Republican presidential candidates started to squirm last week about attending a Sept. 17 YouTube debate, in which the public would ask questions via video, there was a surprising backlash from the world of Republican and conservative bloggers.

The Republican candidates’ failure to embrace the new format, which the Democrats participated in last week, has prompted a public soul-searching in the blogosphere by some of the party’s most loyal supporters. The candidates, they say, reinforced a notion already bedeviling their side: that Republicans don’t “get” the Web. While the Republicans have mastered talk radio, the Democrats have been ahead in using the Web for fund-raising, organizing and energizing the grassroots.

“The YouTube debate snub is the symptom, not the disease,” said Patrick Ruffini, a prominent Republican blogger and the e-campaign director for the Republican National Committee from 2005 until earlier this year.

The “disease,” he said in an interview, is the Republicans’ failure to convey that “the online community matters to them,” even if they have active Web sites and are using them to raise money. He has helped start an online petition to urge the candidates to participate in the YouTube debate.

The candidates are now trying to patch up the mess. Rudolph W. Giuliani and Mitt Romney, two of the leading Republicans, had said last week that the Sept. 17 date interfered with their fund-raising schedules and Mr. Romney said the video format was demeaning. Today, an aide to Mr. Giuliani said the campaign was working with CNN, which is to show the debate, to find a mutually agreeable date, while an aide to Mr. Romney said they were waiting for CNN to propose a new date and would then consider participating.......