Thursday, Jun. 05, 2008

McCain wants ‘town hall’ meetings

Obama campaign open to the idea of 10 events with voters

BATON ROUGE, La. — John McCain asked Barack Obama to join him in 10 town hall meetings with voters in the coming months, and their campaigns began negotiations to make it happen.

McCain, the Republican nominee-in-waiting, made the request Wednesday, the day after Obama clinched the Democratic nomination.

“We need to now sit down and work out a way that we can have these town hall meetings and have a great debate,” McCain told reporters in Baton Rouge.

Campaign managers for the two sides later spoke by phone and agreed in spirit to participate in joint town hall appearances, McCain’s campaign said.

“They both expressed a commitment to raising the level of dialogue, and they will be in close contact as we work together to make this idea a reality,” McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said.

McCain said the more intimate town hall format, a give-and-take between a candidate and the audience, allows real interaction and is more revealing than formal televised debates. He held 101 town hall meetings in New Hampshire before winning the primary there and launching his climb to the GOP nomination.

“I don’t think we need any big media-run production, no process question from reporters, no spin rooms,” McCain said. “Just two Americans running for office in the greatest nation on Earth, responding to the questions of the people whose trust we must earn.”

McCain suggested the first town hall be held June 12 in New York and said he would love to fly there on a plane with Obama. He said President Kennedy had made such an agreement with Sen. Barry Goldwater for the 1964 election, but Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said Wednesday that while the idea is appealing, the campaign would recommend a less-structured, lengthier exchange more in line with the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates.

In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, held seven times during Abraham Lincoln’s losing Senate campaign against Stephen Douglas in Illinois in 1858, a candidate spoke for an hour, the other for an hour and a half, and the first candidate was allowed a half-hour rebuttal.

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