Sanders campaign cool to O’Malley’s more aggressive approach to forcing more debates.WaPo [View all]

The campaign of presidential hopeful Martin O’Malley has made several unsuccessful overtures to rival Bernie Sanders’s camp in recent weeks to jointly buck the Democratic National Committee’s schedule of six debates.

In private conversations, confirmed by aides to both candidates, O’Malley representatives have suggested that both Sanders and O’Malley agree to accept invitations to debates not sanctioned by the DNC in a bid to open up the process, which O’Malley last week characterized as being “rigged” to limit the exposure of front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The DNC has threatened to exclude candidates from its debates if they take part in a non-sanctioned gathering. But aides to O’Malley, the former Maryland governor, say they are skeptical of the threat, particularly if Sanders and O’Malley stand up together against the DNC.

Though Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, has been vocal about wanting more debates, aides say his campaign is more reticent to cross the DNC, reasoning that a chance to appear with O'Malley and other lower-polling Democrats is not worth the risk of losing his shots on stage with Clinton.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/09/03/sanders-campaign-cool-to-omalleys-more-aggressive-approach-to-forcing-more-debates/

No surprise.