UPDATE to visitors from Andrew Sullivan (waving at Sully): Palin…er ah O’Donnell did show up at the JCC event last night, and no, there was no way for her to get the questions in advance as the questions were all from the audience. I was there, and the questions were collected about a half an hour defore the debate started, and reviewed by the moderator from WILM. So I doubt she had the opportunity to see them. However, she read several responses to the questions directly from canned campaign messages. Her eyes were down, never making contact with the audience.

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The first candidate forum of the 2010 general election campaign is tonight at the Siegel Jewish Community Center, located at 101 Garden of Eden Rd., off Concord Pike in the Brandywine Hundred. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., with the debate starting at 7. The forum is sponsored by the Wilmington Chapter of Hadassah and the Jewish Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation of Delaware.

Expected to participate are all the candidates for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House seats, as well as the state-wide races for Auditor and Treasurer. However, Christine O’Donnell’s spokesman Evan Quietsch went on the Rick Jensen Show yesterday afternoon on WDEL, and said that O’Donnell will not show up unless she was provided all the questions to be asked of the candidates before hand. Jensen, a right wing conservative radio host, was absolultey shocked and said that has never been done before at any debate that he attended or moderated.

Now, Evan’s cowardly demand on behalf of his parrot of a candidate is not at all surprising. Christine knows nothing of details on the issues, and has no plans for bringing jobs to Delaware, but she is good at memorizing talking points and then regurgating them on Fox News. So, of course, Christine needs the questions beforehand so she can prepare canned responses rather than actually thinking on her feet.

But, if I remember correctly, most of the questions at past JCC debates have been asked by the audience, making it naturally impossible to give questions to O’Donnell beforehand. Further, if I also remember correctly, Christine O’Donnell attacked Joe Biden in 2008 at the very same JCC forum for not showing up to debate her. How ironic and hypocritical it will be for O’Donnell to back out in 2010.

Perhaps she does not want to explain to the Jewish Community Center audience her stance on refusing to lie to the Nazis and handing Jews over to the them to be killed.