Over the weekend, a bit of a brouha developed regarding the Lieutenant Governor’s debate scheduled for this Thursday before the Prince William Committee of 100. Emails from Democratic candidate Jody Wagner and incumbent Republican Bill Bolling flew fast and furious.
It appears that the campaigns cannot agree on the rules. Now, I know getting campaigns to agree to things is a bit like herding cats 🙂 but given that only two debates are scheduled, it seems that they could have come to some reasonable agreement long ago on this.
If Bolling’s emails are to be believed, the issue is over a “no use” clause: Bolling wants it, Wagner does not. I could make the case for either, although I tend to err on the side of more information as opposed to less. I’m pretty much fed up with small, select groups of people being able to hear the candidates and them just being able to run advertising that is light on the truth.
Besides, what does Bolling have to fear? Having seen him debate four years ago, he’s a decent debater. And since he went to the Republican School of Smooth™ 🙂 I wouldn’t expect any major gaffes.
It would be a shame if the two of them end up only debating once. The people of Virginia deserve to hear from the person who would be a heartbeat away from running our great Commonwealth. Work it out – flip a coin if you have to – and give the people of Virginia an opportunity to hear – unvarnished – how you would serve us.
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If your for more information then your on Bolling’s side. The no-use clause is about not using parts of the debate for political purposes. It is a given that releasing the debate in whole is perfectly fine, Wagner just wanted to be able to take clips out and use it to attack Bolling. I went to the same synagogue as the woman, shes not too bright.
Actually, I’m not on his side. I think he is fearing what happened after the last gubernatorial debate, where BOTH sides immediately released clips.
I’m on the side of the debate taking place.
And it’s not necessarily true that releasing the whole debate is fine. Some debates restrict that as well.
Considering the political penchant for taking sound-bites out of context, I think it is reasonable to require that the debate only be released in full, and not in sound-bites.
Maybe not for all debates, but if you read the whole response from Bolling it had been agreed upon. McDonnell released a clip from after the debate, not during the debate. Didn’t see what Deeds put out, but the fact that Wagner broke the rules and talked publicly about the rules shows just how shallow she is.
Actually, Max, you’re reading one side of the emails and not the other side. I get emails from both campaigns. Jody’s email was NOT about the very limited “no-use” clause. Here’s the quote:
I read that to be much broader – as in the entire debate – as opposed to just clips. YMMV.
As for the Fairfax debate – within minutes, the Republican clips were on YouTube and on the blogs. The Deeds clips took a little while longer to make it out.
Bolling references the Fairfax debate, which I honestly thought must not have had a “no-use” clause, given how quickly the clips were released. He appears to be looking for an excuse not to participate, which I find quite puzzling.
Well, rationalize your comments any way you want, but the fact is that the Committee of 100 intended to post — as it does with all of its programs — the debate in its entirety on line. I am on the Executive Board of the group.
That would have been useful to know. None of the reports I’ve seen in the MSM reference the intent of the Committee of 100.
I’m not sure what you are referring to about rationalizing comments.