The other day we told you that the RNC was warning primary candidates not to participate in Bob Vander Plaats Iowa Thanksgiving Forum to be held later this month. They claimed it was a debate and participating it in would violate the pledges each candidate signed not to appear in any non-sanctioned debate.
But Bob Vander Plaats isn’t canceling his forum and is still inviting the candidates to come. He argues it is not even close to a debate and never has been, as he’s done this in the past without issue.
Here’s more from RCP:
The Iowa Family Leader and the Republican National Committee are at an impasse.
When the influential evangelical organization invited each of the 2024 GOP presidential candidates to attend its Thanksgiving forum, the Republican National Committee quietly warned the campaigns that participating in the event would disqualify them from all future sanctioned debates, RealClearPolitics was first to report.
Regardless, the Iowa Family Leader doesn’t have plans to reschedule or reformat. “We are going to move forward with the forum,” said Bob Vander Plaats, the president and CEO of the organization.
The issue is what exactly constitutes a debate. According to the RNC counsel, the forum is an unsanctioned debate, and participating in the event would violate the pledge candidates signed in order to participate in the sanctioned debates.
According to Vander Plaats, who characterized all his conversations with the RNC as “amiable,” this is nonsense. “First of all, this is not a debate, not even close,” he told RCP in a Thursday morning interview, noting how his organization previously hosted primary candidates in 2012 and 2016 without incident. Rather than standing behind podiums, attendees sit around the same table. And rather than exchanging barbs, in past years, they’ve talked about their faith.
The rules are simple. “You can’t talk negative about anybody at the table,” he said. And the upside is obvious. “It would be good to show how a modern team of rivals can sit at a table together and have an adult conversation about the future of the country,” he added.
Vander Plaats said three candidates already confirmed they would attend, the Des Moines Register was first to report. He repeated that list in an interview with RCP: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, and Vivek Ramaswamy. None, however, would confirm their plans.
The Scott campaign did not return a request for comment. The DeSantis campaign declined to comment, though the governor’s campaign manager, James Uthmeier, previously told RCP that he found it “a little bit odd” that “the RNC would suddenly feel threatened by that event when it has happened in so many prior races.”
A Ramaswamy spokeswoman told RCP that their campaign remains “hopeful that the RNC and Family Leader will be able to work out their logistical issues to best serve the voters.”
As I said before, they should all agree to attend and the RNC won’t have any choice but to back down. It really is that simple.