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Obama promises there's no need to delete your Tivo settings for Friday night:
Barack Obama is committed to hosting a public, televised event Friday night in Mississippi even if John McCain does not show up, an official close to the Obama campaign tells the Huffington Post.In McCain's absence, the Senator is willing to make the scheduled debate a townhall meeting, a one-on-one interview with NewsHour's Jim Lehrer, or the combination of the two, the official said.This puts the McCain campaign in a difficult position to say the least. It's not going to look terribly frivolous if Obama spends an hour answering voter questions about the housing crisis and his agenda. McCain's absence will speak volumes. But if Congress doesn't reach a deal before Friday night, McCain can't very well back down from his promise. Worse, it's pretty clear that the McCain campaign hasn't been doing debate prep for the past few days, and if he were to change course, he's not going to be as focused and in control of the situation as if he'd been readying himself for the confrontation all week.
