No Debatetime at the Apollo for Bloomberg

Mayor Bloomberg, eager to show that he does care about black people, denounced conservative William Bennett's remarks that abortionsin the black community would cause the crime rate to go down. Well, duh, of course the Mayor would do that: William Bennett is a complete idiot and the Mayor needs to shore up as many minority votes as possible. Mayoral opponent Fernando Ferrer and his most prominent African-American endorser, Reverend Al Sharpton, have been criitcizing the Mayor for not wanting to attend a debate on Thursday at the Apollo Theatre. Sharpton calls Bloomberg's tactics "drive-by" campaigning while Ferrer says he's hiding behind his $100 million in campaign spending. The Mayor's campaign claims that Bloomberg would rather appear in debates closer to election day (November 8), and on debates that will be on broadcast networks; his spokesman says, "With all due respect to Rev. Sharpton, the debate on NY1 -- leave the Apollo Theater aside -- it has a very limited audience; only people who are cable subscribers can see that debate." That's a burn for NY1, and Newsday, which is sponsoring the debate! Ferrer will be left to debate with the conservative party's Thomas Ognibene; together, they will have a Bloomberg hate-in.