Romney Bows Out of a Debate, and Others Follow

A debate scheduled for March 1 in Atlanta was canceled after Mitt Romney’s campaign announced that the candidate had no plans to participate in the event being sponsored by CNN and the Georgia Republican Party. Two other candidates, Rick Santorum and Representative Ron Paul, quickly followed suit.

The debates held in the Republican nominating contest have been so frequent and omnipresent that they have become something of a running joke. The campaigns — especially Mr. Romney’s — like to grumble about them, and they have become such a feature of evening television that they have almost come to resemble just another TV reality show, albeit of a different bent. Some have even said that comedic takes on the debates, like those on “Saturday Night Live,” have not lived up to the theater of the actual events.

For viewers suffering separation anxiety, there is still one more Republican debate, which CNN is sponsoring next Wednesday night in Arizona. For Mr. Romney and some other hopefuls, it will be the 21st of the race, seemingly some sort of record. (In fact, in 2008, both the Democrats and Republicans had an equally unending string of debates.)

In an e-mail, the Romney campaign said that Mr. Romney was unable to make the debate because of scheduling demands before the series of primaries and caucuses on March 6, known as Super Tuesday.

“Governor Romney will be spending a lot of time campaigning in Georgia and Ohio ahead of Super Tuesday,” wrote Andrea Saul, a campaign spokeswoman. “With eight other states voting on March 6, we will be campaigning in other parts of the country and unable to schedule the CNN Georgia debate. We have participated in 20 debates, including eight from CNN.”

A spokesman for Mr. Santorum told a reporter for CBS News and The National Journal, which first reported the debate cancellation, that the candidate had “no plans of doing it right now.” Jesse Benton, a national campaign chairman for Mr. Paul, said that he, too, would be bowing out. “We have decided not to participate,” Mr. Benton said in an e-mail.

One candidate did not seem to like the turn of events: Newt Gingrich. Upon being told that Mr. Romney would skip the debate, Mr. Gingrich, campaigning in Los Angeles, said he expected to participate, then offered a reason Mr. Romney would want to avoid confrontation.

“The Romney model is to go to Wall Street and raise huge amounts of money to run negative ads,” Mr. Gingrich said, “and you can understand why having to defend that strategy is probably not something he’s very happy with.”

Mr. Gingrich is perhaps the most debate-happy of the four remaining candidates. When Herman Cain, a pizza magnate, was still in the race, he and Mr. Gingrich sat down for a one-on-one, Lincoln-Douglas-style debate. And Mr. Gingrich, who is known for aggressively confronting the debate moderators to score points with the audience, saw his candidacy resuscitated by his verbal confrontations with Mr. Romney and debate moderators.

He has challenged everyone from President Obama to Mr. Romney to join him in a more freewheeling debate format. (So far, they have declined.)

But CNN, in a statement, said that “without full participation of all four candidates” it would not hold the March 1 debate.

Trip Gabriel contributed reporting from Los Angeles.

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