It looks as if there will be no debates at all between the two candidates in Virginia's 33rd Senate district special election. Earlier this week Republican Mick Staton backed out of the League of Women Voters (LWV) forum scheduled for Monday and today there is a report that Democrat Mark Herring has declined to attend a debate organized by Republican Staton because Staton refused to open the debate to the general public.
"The Staton campaign then announced Thursday that Staton agreed to debate Herring at 1 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 25, at Falcon?s Landing. His press release stated it would be open to the public, but Herring said his understanding of the discussions he had with the Staton campaign was that the debate would only be for Falcon?s Landing residents. So he declined."
As you can probably already guess, many of the residents of Falcon's Landing vote at the Sugarland North precinct which tends to vote Republican. The large exception to this rule being last November, when the incumbent Republican Delegate Dick Black was voted out of office and lost all the precincts in his district. On the other hand, Staton should fear the voters; the outspoken and far-right Dick Black is his father-in-law.
Republican Mick Staton has plenty of excuses (from the cited article):
1) "he wasn?t sure of his schedule"
2) "he did not know who would moderate the league?s debate" He went on to add he didn't know who was moderating the debate he organized either.
3) "They were essentially asking me to walk in cold right after a primary win," This is the best one. Staton fed speculation of his candidacy or campaigned for several weeks before winning his primary 6 days before the scheduled debate and the election is only 8 days after it. When did he expect to face the voters?
4) The 2005 debate hosted by the local LWV was a "fiasco". The "fiasco" was that "during the October 2005 debate, Black was heckled for mispronouncing Poisson?s name as ?poison.? Black eventually would taunt the crowd..."
Apparently Staton's campaign strategy is "The less they know about me the better".
Democrat Mark Herring explained his turning down the forum as:
"My understanding is it is not open to the public and I think if we are going to have a debate it should be open to the public"
The special election is scheduled for Tuesday, January 31st to fill the Senate seat of Republican Bill Mims who left to take a top job at the Attorney General's office. The Leesburg Today has the full story.
[UPDATE: If you want to help Herring this weekend, the address for his field office is 44115 Woodridge Pkwy suite 240, Leesburg. His phone number is 703-669-1361.]
Mick the Duck... Quack.