USA Today has endorsed your effort. Keep the letters coming!!!!

Published September 05, 2007 @ 09:57AM PT

Your effort is now officially endorsed by USA TODAY, NY Times, Washington Post and Time Inc. We need to keep the letters coming to show that there is grassroots interest in making this debate in New Orleans a reality.

PLEASE TAKE 3-5 MINUTES TO COPY THE LINK BELOW AND SEND IT TO YOUR EMAIL LISTS!!
http://friendsofneworleans.change.org/nonprofit_page/nonprofit_events/94511?event_id=14757



USA TODAY OPINION ARTICLE BELOW
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Opinion
A non-debatable choice
September 5, 2007

Normally, the issue of where a presidential debate takes place matters little. Though the debates stir pride and fill hotel rooms in the host cities, their main purpose is to produce video images seen on television sets nationwide.

But for the 2008 election, one city can make an unusually persuasive case for being chosen by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is slated to make its selections next month.

That city is New Orleans.

A Big Easy debate would certainly be an economic boost, because it would draw attention to the recovery of the city's tourist and convention sites. But the city's main strength as a debate location is in the many challenges it still faces. Name any major domestic policy issue and in New Orleans it's a major problem, a promising solution or a grand experiment:

* Education. Hurricane Katrina destroyed a public school system not worth saving. With 57% of its students now in charter schools, New Orleans is by far the biggest education laboratory in the USA. Early indications of its success or failure should be detectable by the time of the debates.

* Crime. New Orleans' surging crime rate shows what happens when a city is short on police, has its criminal justice and school systems in disarray, and lacks mental health facilities. While New Orleans' post-Katrina challenges have been unusually acute, these problems are common to other big cities.

* Infrastructure. The failure of the levees, combined with the recent Minneapolis bridge collapse, exposes the sorry state of many public works projects undertaken decades ago. It also raises questions about government subsidization of communities in flood- and hurricane-prone areas.

New Orleans is one of 16 applicants for one of three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate to be held in the fall of 2008. Republicans are no doubt wary of a locale that could remind the nation of the Bush administration's initially inept response after Katrina. But this should not get in the city's way. The presidential race is more about debating the nation's future than reviewing the past.

These days, New Orleans, a city known for its rich history, is providing a window into that future.