Roger Guillemin & Le Corbeau: Father and Son
San Diego CityBeat staff writer Dave Maass (OK, that's me) will be moderating not one, but two presidential debates this weekend in Tucson, Arizona, as part of the Project White House "reality journalism" experiment for dark-horse candidates.
That's to say, Newt, Mitt, Ron and Rick haven't confirmed yet, probably because they haven't been invited.
Of the 23 Republicans in the "presidential preference election," 10 are Project White House candidates, including Donald Benjamin and Jim Terr, who drew the top-two slots on the ballot. Three of the six Green candidates are also competing in Project White House, but due to President Barack Obama's incumbency (read: cowardice) there won't be a Democratic primary.
Candidates have been posting videos and position statements on Tucson Weekly's website, attending "beer summits" and accepting challenges, all with the hope of gaining the newspaper's endorsement and the attention of Arizona voters. The debates are where they'll have the opportunity for the greatest reach and the last big chance to make an impression.
The debates will run on Access Tucson, Tucson's public-access network, in partnership with Tucson Weekly. They will be broadcast online, too!
Illegal Knowledge debate: 7 p.m. PST on Saturday, Feb. 18. Live stream here.
The official Project White House / Tucson Weekly / Access Tucson debate: 6 p.m. PST on Sunday, Feb. 19. Live stream here.
We're looking for questions, from the serious to absurd, from Twitter users. Please tweet your questions to @PWH2012 by Sunday night. We'll take 'em in advance and live.
For an idea of how this works, check out this clip from the Project White House 2008 debate:
