The Kremlin's faux populism

Why won't leading Russian presidential candidate Dmitri Medvedev debate his opponents? It would take too much time away from pressing the flesh, say his handlers:

Senior United Russia member Vyacheslav Volodin said Medvedev was meeting ordinary citizens in an extensive campaign across Russia and that television debates would disrupt his schedule. "The most important thing for us is real deeds, meeting people and solving actual problems, not wrangling in a TV studio," Volodin was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

Why debate your political opponents when you can simply pretend they don't exist? Soon enough, after all, they may not.