UNC Television will host a live broadcast debate Wednesday night at 8 p.m., but one of the key players won't be there. Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue has declined the invitation to participate, UNC-TV's Steve Volstad announced Tuesday morning, so the two contestants will be the Republican nominee, Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, and the Libertarian nominee, Duke University political science department chairman Mike Munger. This may be a good opportunity for Munger, a smart and engaging fellow, to persuade voters who don't know about him that there's an alternative to the major political party candidates.
It's also interesting that the Perdue campaign chose not to have the lieutenant governor, the Democratic nominee, participate. It may confirm in some folks' mind that her advisers don't want her to participate in too many debates because it doesn't play to her strengths. I used to think her advisers were wrong, that after presiding over the Senate for nearly eight years and having to deal with such challenges as former Sen. Hugh Webster or Democratic leader Sen. Tony Rand, she wouldn't have any trouble with her opponents. But McCrory's the more polished campaigner in such head-to-head confrontations, though Perdue has improved some. And, as my colleague Ryan Teague Beckwith points out at Under the Dome, there will be one more debate, on Oct. 15 in Charlotte, sponsored by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg League of Women Voters.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
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2 comments:
God Bless the League of Women Voters they are doing a service to this State by having all three candidates for Governor in their debate. It is a shame and a sham that the League of Women Voters had the Presidential debates taken away from them because the Republicans and Democrats don't want to face credible third party challengers.
This is a surprising and indeed, rare opportunity for Pat McCrory to lay out his campaign's priorities and themes to the best statewide public affairs programming audience across the Old North State.
It is truly surprising that Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue's campaign would decline an opportunity to appear on the statewide UNC-TV network. No matter how many debates there are, for a statewide audience, nothing tops UNC-TV.
The League of Women Voters' event will be a great opportunity for people in the Charlotte region to focus on the candidates. But for Bev Perdue's team, pulling out of the UNC-TV forum is like pulling the goalie in the last minute of a hockey game without putting that extra skater on the ice.
It's definitely an "open-net" opportunity for Republican Pat McCrory and Libertarian Michael Munger.
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