Univision’s GOP debate postponed

Most of the news has focused on Fred Thompson’s absence from last night’s Republican debate in order to announce his presidential candidacy on “The Tonight Show.” However, there’s a potentially more embarrassing debate absence affecting most of the GOP’s presidential hopefuls.

Last week U.S. television network Univision postponed a Spanish-language Republican debate that was supposed to take place on September 16^th. An Univision spokesperson blamed “scheduling conflicts” for the change despite the network having announced the date nearly three months ago. As we mentioned last month, Senator John McCain was the lone GOP candidate to accept his invitation to what would’ve been a key forum to address the burgeoning Latino voting bloc.

In an op/ed piece admonishing the Democrats for their stance on free trade, Andres Oppenheimer rightly took the Republicans to task for their lack of enthusiasm at the Univision debate:

“Top Republican presidential hopefuls have turned their backs on U.S. Hispanics even more than the Democrats by embracing anti-immigration stands championed by their party's most extremist -- and xenophobic -- wing.

The immigration stands of Republican hopefuls Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney have put them at such odds with the Hispanic community that they declined the Univision network's invitation to participate at a Republican candidates debate. It had to be canceled after only one candidate -- Sen. John McCain -- agreed to participate.”

Univision’s Democratic debate will still be held this Sunday and will include all the candidates including Hillary Clinton who initially denied her invitation.

Image- mediachannel.org

Sources- Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, Washington Post – The Trail, The Latin Americanist, HispanicBusiness.com, New York Times – The Caucus, MySA.com