Andermania

October 18, 2011

Huntsman called Cooper ahead of debate

Anderson Cooper is in Las Vegas at the moment, getting ready for moderating tonight’s CNN and Western Republican Leadership Conference debate. Last night, his publicist managed to pull him away from a pack of screaming fans – it sounded like Beatlemania from my end of the phone -- long enough for me to ask him a few questions about tonight’s debate.

KH: Jon Huntsman is boycotting Tuesday’s debate, and maybe the Nevada caucus altogether, as a way of protesting threats to New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation status. Are you going to be talking about why he’s not on the stage?

AC: He called me on Saturday and we talked a little bit. I am sure it will come up during the debate, but I’m not sure how much of the specifics will.

KH: There will be voters asking questions. How will they be chosen?

AC: The initial question is going to be asked by people in the hall, all of whom are registered Republicans, I believe, and all of whose names we have gotten from the conference itself.

KH: And how will you decide which questions to pick?

AC: It’ll be question and topics that we feel would be an interesting discussion. We got a lot of great questions and we are still going over them. We want to make sure that the people who ask them are who they say they are.

KH: Will there be any special focus on the problems Nevada is facing?

AC: There will be definitely some issues that are related to the people of Nevada, though it’s not just Nevada, but the Western region. Unemployment is very high here. There’s a number of issues. I don’t want to get into specifics, but we are aware of where we are.

KH: How will this debate be different from the other CNN debates of this season?

AC: Every week, the campaign has become different, and the people who are dicussed today are different from the people who were discussed five daysa go – the big difference is that the campaign is in a different place. We’ve seen Herman Cain now, in some of these polls, running on par with Mitt Romney. I think a lot of the candidates will be looking at Herman Cain and talking about Herman Cain.

KH: The Media Research Center is just out with a report that finds that your segment “Keeping them Honest” tends to target Republicans far more often than Democrats – 24 Republicans since July, compared to 3 Democrats, a factor of 8-to-1. Why?

AC: I think we are looking more closely at a Republican field that has a number of candidates. There’s a lot more to talk about with nine different Republican candidates out there. If it was a Democratic primary, we’d focus on Democrats. And there are certainly plenty of times when we’ve focused on President Obama or the Congressional Black Caucus.

I don’t think it’s accurate to say that we are just focusing on Republicans, but there is a very heated and very interesting Republican primary going on, where you have a number of Republican candidates making statements. As you get more into the general election, the focus will change.

KH: Are you ready for Newt Gingrich to attack you, the way he attacked Chris Wallace?

AC: I’m prepared as I can be for any of these kinds of events.

Posted by Keach Hagey 12:26 PM