We're on!

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A few days ago, we asked the Moore and Perdue campaigns to join us for a virtual debate here at BlueNC. Today both campaigns said they would like to participate. We don't have a date yet, but we do have clear commitments from both campaigns!

Here's the email we received from Eli Kaplan of the Moore Campaign.

James,

Thank you very much for organizing this. We think it has the potential to be a very interesting format and, like I posted a couple of weeks ago, Richard is committed to participating.

Reading the thread about the virtual gubernatorial debate, there were some concerns expressed about the capacity of the site to handle this kind of format since you’ve never used it before. We share those concerns and just want to make sure that all of the technical kinks are worked out. I’m sure you would agree that it’s in everyone’s interest – both of the candidates, the managers of the site, and the BlueNC community generally – to ensure that this runs as smoothly as possible.

Feel free to share this message with your readers if you would like.

Thanks a lot,

Eli

Separately, I received a phone call from Zach Ambrose of the Perdue campaign saying they would participate and would be back in touch soon about possible dates.

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The message I sent Eli ...

Submitted by James on Thu, 01/24/2008 - 4:04pm.

Thanks, Eli.

And special thanks for sharing you're concerns. We're working with Media Temple (our hosting service) to make sure we have all the technical issues handled. We shifted to a dedicated server about 60 days ago, and for the most part things have been running well. The one outage we had was because the host company was upgrading their PHP database. Somehow we got caught in the crossfire.

As soon as we have a date, we'll start working with all involved to button things down.

I hope community members don't mind that I'm going to such lengths to keep all this fully transparent. That's one of the things I love about the interTubes, and it seems especially important as we break this new ground. This has to be a first in the history of North Carolina politics ... maybe any state ... a virtual debate online between two great candidates. It's a testament to both campaigns that they're embracing the blogosphere with such enthusiasm.

Please let both campaigns know you appreciate their interest in participating.

Exciting!

Do good. Be nice. Have fun.

Nicely done, A.

Submitted by persondem on Thu, 01/24/2008 - 5:50pm.

I have not been online as any of the previous "blogging with _____" have been in progress, but I will go out of my way to watch this debate as it happens. I would also do what I can to advertise this event so please give as much notice as possible.
Quite the feather. I hope you have a cap to put it in. :)

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