After months of grassroots anger at the Democratic National Committee for its limited schedule of awkwardly timed debates, NBC News and New Hampshire’s Union Leader said screw it, and announced they’d be holding an unsanctioned debate between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. But exactly what’s going to happen with that debate is very much up in the air. The DNC continues to dig in its heels:
"We have consistently worked with our campaigns to ensure a schedule that is robust and that allows them to engage with voters in a variety of ways, whether through debates, forums, town halls, but also leaving them the flexibility to attend county fairs and living room conversations in states like Iowa and New Hampshire where direct voter contact matters so much."
DNC rules stipulate that any candidate who participates in an unsanctioned debate forfeits the opportunity to attend contests sanctioned by the party. A DNC aide told The Hill that the party is not considering lifting that policy.
Never mind that this debate would be in New Hampshire and so not get in the way of campaigning flexibly in that state, and that New Hampshire Democrats tend to be invested in the idea of hosting a debate.
Martin O’Malley’s campaign is all about any added debates, this one included. Hillary Clinton’s campaign said Tuesday night that Clinton “would be happy to participate in a debate in New Hampshire if the other candidates agree, which would allow the D.N.C. to sanction the debate.” (There’s obviously no guarantee the DNC would do so, but … what’s it going to do? Block all three candidates from its future sanctioned debates?) But Bernie Sanders’ campaign has said Sanders would not participate in an unsanctioned debate:
The Democratic National Committee has “said this will be an unsanctioned debate, so we would not want to jeopardize our ability to participate in future debates,” [campaign manager Jeff] Weaver said.
He added that if the Democratic National Committee did sanction the debate, the campaign’s stance would be different.
However, you don’t exactly call the DNC’s bluff by holding back while the other campaigns say they’ll move forward. Wednesday morning the Clinton campaign called on the Sanders campaign to “join us in saying they will be in New Hampshire next week.”