Now, was that so bad?

When six Republican candidates for president showed up last night for a forum at Morgan State University in Baltimore, my hometown, people in the audience all acted like they had some sense.

The panel – Pulitzer Prize winner Cynthia Tucker, PBS’s Ray Suarez and Juan Williams, an NPR and Fox News contributor – spoke proper English. The audience was receptive and appreciative. No one yelled out, “Yo, Tommy Tancredo, what are you going to do for the brothers and sisters?”

Well-dressed, well-informed men and women acted just like any other audience for a debate televised on PBS. It was behavior that would make Bill O’Reilly proud.

At the “All-American Presidential Forum on PBS,” moderated by Tavis Smiley, GOP presidential candidates Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo and Alan Keyes, who announced his candidacy last week, answered questioned on immigration, health care and the justice system in America.

The event, organized to give candidates a chance to discuss issues of interest to minority voters, covered the same issues that are of interest to every American.

Surprise, surprise.

A June forum for Democratic candidates at Howard University was attended by all.

So why did GOP front-runners Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson decide to skip last night’s PBS party?

All cited scheduling conflicts and fund-raising pressures but even other Republicans didn’t buy it.

Former congressman Jack Kemp, the Republican vice presidential nominee in 1996, said: “We sound like we don’t want immigration; we sound like we don’t want black people to vote for us.”

“What are we going to do, meet in a country club in the suburbs one day?”

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, perhaps a possible candidate himself, called the front-runners’ excuses “baloney.”

Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who took the stage for a photo-op, also criticized the no-shows. Steele, who is black and a Republican, managed to get elected in the usually Democratic-leaning state.

So, again, why duck this particular forum, especially after a GOP debate on Univision, a Spanish-language network, was canceled after only McCain agreed to participate?

Could candidates be avoiding hard questions from what they fear might be a hostile crowd? Or could they be writing off voters they don’t think they have a chance to convince?

It makes sense that the leaders in current polls would have more places to go and people to see. But “undecided” is still doing awfully well with voters. You’d think a politician would take every opportunity to make his or her (his, in the GOP field) case.

The person who eventually is elected will be president of all the people, not just a small sliver of constituents. One of the qualities of a president is the ability to clearly explain your positions and the reasons you developed them.

Last night, candidates certainly didn’t temper their criticism of illegal immigration and the welfare state. They stated their support of strong moral values and responsible parenting.

The auditorium at Morgan didn’t go silent or erupt in boos.

This past week, O’Reilly came in for some ribbing when he explained to his audience how all black aren’t taking orders from Snoop Dogg. But O’Reilly isn’t running for president.

You’d think men running for the presidency would kind of know black people are individuals with open minds who think for themselves.

While the last few elections saw blacks vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates, it wasn’t always so. I know something about that, raised, as I was by two black, moderate Republicans who voted the candidate, not the party and taught me to do the same. They were not alone in my West Baltimore neighborhood.

It’s dangerous to make assumptions about how an entire race of people thinks about anything.

Besides, how are you going to talk tough to terrorists when you can’t get up in front of citizens of the United States of America and talk about what you would do as their president?

Black and Hispanic voters want their children to get a good education. They want health coverage for their families. They want to know how the GOP would tackle America’s problems.

Is there distrust among some, a distrust based on history?

Of course.

But how will not showing up help?