What is it about Republicans. Seems like I’ve been reading accounts of numerous GOP incumbents who are unwilling to debate their opponents in the upcoming midterms. Here in Missouri neither Rep. Billy Long (R-7) or Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2) will agree to meet their challengers in front of an audience that would, presumably, include media reporting on how well they managed to defend their performance in Congress as well as their lock-step support of GOP policies. Both seem to be conveniently unavailable to attend any of the traditional debates sponsored by the League of Women Voters (in Long’s case, co-sponsored with the Missouri State University’s Center for Community Engagement).

Wagner’s more pressing commitment, which conflicts with the debate scheduled on October 22, consists of campaigning for the Republican candidate in Northern Virginia. Evidently, Wagner’s status as an up-and-coming member of the GOP House leadership doesn’t leave her enough time to stand up before her constituents and deal with their bread-and-butter issues in a forum where there might be some push-back. One is hard put to view her potential absence at the candidates’ debate as anything more than strategic, however, since, according to a spokesperson for the League, Wagner can’t seem to find any other time on her calendar to meet with her challengers, Democrat Arthur Lieber and Libertarian Bill Slantz. She wants us to believe that she’s just too busy being important elsehwere to stand up and take responsibility for her part in the past two years.

Billy Long, though, has gone Wagner one better. He’s not only refused to debate his Democratic challenger, Jim Evans, and the Libertarian Kevin Craig, but, as of last Wednesday at least, his campaign staff were unwilling or unable to let anyone in on Long’s whereabouts or the timing and locations of any potential campaign events. But not to worry. According to a Long staffer, he will be “out and about meeting with people in the district.”

Wagner seems to be offering a similar “walking” defense (like walking pneumonia perhaps, manifesting silently?). Her staff person noted that “Ann has been walking neighborhoods and meeting with voters across the district, […] the people of the Second District know they can talk to Ann when she is out in [sic] about in their neighborhoods, visiting local businesses, at church or other community events.” I’m Wagner’s constituent, and she has yet to appear at my door, or in my supermarket, or at any community events I’ve attended. And I wouldn’t want to make book on such encounters, were they to take place, resulting in a substantial exchange. In my experience, candidate walkabouts rarely waste much time on anyone who doesn’t seem to be a sure thing.

Which is why I would love to hear from any undecided voters or Democrats out there. How many have managed to meet and greet either of these perambulating candidates? Did they entertain your questions seriously? Or did you get the glad-hand along with a vague and dismissive response to anything even slightly confrontational? Wouldn’t it be good for folks who think they know what these individuals stand for to hear them defend their positions in a real give-and-take with the other side? What are Wagner and Long really afraid of?

The answer is, of course, that there are many reasons for these candidates to skip the debates. Would you want to justify your support for last fall’s government shutdown which cost the taxpayers billions for no reason except to indulge a fit of Tea Party pique – an event for which Wagner served as one of the chief GOP cheerleaders. Both she and Long might have to explain why they went along with the endless votes to repeal Obamacare while 7.3 million individuals now have insurance thanks to its provisions. Or they could try to explain why they were so willing to support the Ryan budget and its efforts to privatize Medicare and cut Social Security benefits. Questions about all those “achievements” and many, many more might be raised in a debate with informed and articulate challengers.

And then there are those issues specific to each candidate. Billy Long, for instance might be asked about how he managed to spend about $100,000 from his campaign kitty over the last year mostly to finance meals in pricey restaurants. Or he might perhaps be called to task for trying to demagogue the topic of Ebola while doing nothing to take responsibility for voting for Republican cuts to the U.S. public health health and health research agencies that bear the brunt of protecting us from epidemics like ebola.

As for Wagner, she might not want to have to deal with questions about how she justifies pushing long discredited information about how abortion can cause breast cancer. This is especially relevant, since it seems likely that Wagner’s rising star in the GOP hinges on wishful thinking about her ability to make the mostly older, white, male party more palatable to women.

So, all in all, there’s probably no mystery about why Republicans don’t want to face the music in an open venue. Many commentators have noted the GOP tendency to lie outright when confronted with past positions they now wish to disavow (see Colorado’s Cory Gardner and his “personhood” disavowals), or the consequences of past positions that it isn’t politic to disavow (see Bownback’s defense of his Kansas tax cuts). But damm! It’s  hard to lie in a situation where your opponent, God forbid, might lay the facts out right in front of you.

Edited slightly for clarity.

Southern Beale, at First Draft:

A Debate For Idiots

Okay kids are we ready for the second debate tonight? I know we’re all supposed to be super-excited about it because of the town hall format and the fact that the questions will be asked entirely by that chupacabra of politics, the undecided voter. Or, as the rest of America calls them: those idiots who still haven’t made up their mind three weeks before the election.

If there is anyone in network news reading this post I would just like to tell you folks that the absolute last people we want to hear from right now are undecided voters. These are people for whom “paper or plastic?” must constitute a dilemma of existential proportions. Pretty much 90% of Americans made up their minds one way or the other a year ago…

…Here’s what I don’t get: you folks in the media keep telling us that we live in an era of partisan, divided politics, the most partisan era in recent memory, blah blah. And yet every four years you trot out this fantasy of the undecided voter. It’s really bizarre….

….I mean, come on, already. Maybe I’m wrong but it just seems like we’d get a far more substantive debate if we took questions from the people who’ve been paying attention versus the people who can’t figure out how to tie their shoelaces in the morning.

Go. Read the whole thing.

From Vicky Hartzler’s 2010 campaign [August 25, 2010], via Facebook:

And, from Vicky Hartzler (r) on September 16, 2010:

….I am sorry to have to tell you that you and the rest of the voters of the 4th Congressional District are being denied your right to hear from all the individuals who are vying to represent you in Washington. I have proposed forums each Friday from now till the election so that voters can ask both of us questions and make an informed decision on who to support….

….Perhaps he doesn’t want to have to answer for his 95% voting record….

[emphasis added]

And September 28, 2010. In 2010, according to Vicky Hartzler (r), debates were very important and 95% wasn’t a good percentage. Evidently, times they are a changin’.

In yesterday’s Kansas City Star:

In Missouri’s 4th District, Hartzler-Hensley race reflects change

Hartzler-Hensley race for the Missouri seat reflects changing times and a redrawn district.

By DAVE HELLING

The Kansas City Star

….Hartzler hasn’t exactly been a boat-rocker in the House.

She has voted with the GOP 95 percent of the time….

….So Hensley has pushed Hartzler to debate. But the two candidates have yet to share a stage or microphone.

“I think voters deserve it,” Hensley said in a statement provided by the campaign.

Hartzler hasn’t budged, although she blames the lack of debates on logistics. “We’ll just have to see what opportunities are available,” she said….

[emphasis added]

I smell fear.

Remember last October when Sarah Steelman pushed to debate the other GOP candidates seeking to run against Claire McCaskill next year and the Brunner campaign seemingly demurred? At the time it seemed obvious that the reason might have had something to do with the “not-ready-for-prime-time” vibe that Brunner was giving off. Consider, for instance, this little snippet culled from John Brunner’s effort to describe what he would do to help small business:

When starting a business, you have to look at the total picture. We have got so far off track; the whole health care system is so federalized. I have never seen the U.S. government take on a project that it was able to provide a better value at a lower cost more efficiently.It’s a huge, huge problem and it hits us hard. I know in my own business, the most important thing for everybody is to have good health care. We need to take a look back and find out why do we have hundreds of other regulations and other costs that take priority over what I would say is basic health care for the employees and associates in your business? Our priorities are messed up in our country, bottom line. The priority of our competitive environment is that our government has laid in so many regulatory costs and so many complicated tax issues and so many legal issues that a small business now – we have a system that is sucking dry everything. …

As you read this, don’t you envision a shipwrecked sailor desperately paddling for land, grabbing at every bit of right-wing flotsam and jetsam in mental proximity?

But now, a scant two months later, Brunner is signaling that he is chafing at the bit when it comes to debating his primary rivals. You think he actually mastered the essentials during a couple of months of cramming? Of course, you have to consider his opponents, Todd Akin and Sarah Steelman. Perhaps Brunner’s handlers finally decided that there’s not too much he could say to hurt himself in such company.

It should be entertaining at the very least. Given Brunner’s obvious proclivity for twisted syntax and chaotic free association, the only thing more amusing might be listening to him debate Sarah Palin. Although, come to think of it, even better would be hearing Claire McCaskill, who is nothing if not quick on her feet, eviscerate him next year.  

During the past few weeks, Roy Blunt has managed to mention his “jobs plan” in just about every other sentence, and like that fish story where the fish gets bigger and bigger with each retelling, it seems the job plan also gets bigger and bigger with each retelling. He’s so proud of it that last night, during his debate with Robin Carnahan, he inflated his 20 page plan to 100 pages, comparing it with what he called Carnahan’s “500 word plan.”

Not only was he mistaken about the size of his plan, but he also misspoke about Carnahan’s “jobs plan.” Rather than a detailed blueprint for jobs creation, you will find on Carnahan’s campaign Webpage a list of general “commonsense” principles that she would use to guide her efforts as a legislator charged with creating jobs, a principled, intelligent approach to a complex issue that will be only be resolved as part of a cooperative, congressional effort.

When I try to reduce Blunt’s plan to similar principles, I come up with three sentences that left me with a serious (and not very pleasant) case of deja vu:

1. Cut social spending, some administrative government expenses, and privatize wherever possible in order to cut the deficit.

2. Cut taxes

3. Gut industrial and business regulation.

Bearing in mind the “500 word” jibe, I tried, just for fun, to list each more or less substantive proposal listed in his plan in order to count the words. After cutting out the standard GOP talking points and the empty whinging about the Obama administration and the Democratic congress, I was left with about 280 words.

You will notice if you read the shorter Blunt jobs plan below, that it is seriously uneven and often duplicative. There are big, vague proposals combined with extremely specific and often rather trivial proposals. Many would have a questionable or even a negative effect on either job creation or deficit reduction, which is one of the legs of his plan, others would probably have some small effect, while still others reference future issues (e.g., cap-and-trade, which is already probably dead for the near term). What they all have in common is that, taken together, they could be mistaken for a wish-list prepared by Blunt’s corporate donors and lobbyist pals.

If you want to read Blunt’s six point jobs plan in the 280 word version, jump below the fold. (There’s also an excellent analysis of the deficit cutting claims Blunt makes about his proposed spending cuts over at FiredUP Missouri if Blunt’s jobs mania interests you.)

Roy Blunt’s job plan in 280 words:

Cut spending : Take back unspent stimulus;  “reform” entitlements (i.e., privatize Social Security, slash welfare?) ; cut welfare; reform Fannie and Freddie Mac, sell Excess government property;  cut subsidies to unions (i.e., prohibit public employees from doing union business at work ); cut memberships to funny sounding international organizations; and slash duplicative government  agencies; and freeze domestic discretionary spending at 2008 levels.

Stabilize marketplace: Let industry call all the shots (i.e., cut  business taxes  and gut regulations); repeal the Affordable Care Act; extend the homeowners tax credit;  lower the tax depreciation schedule; enact tort reform

Promote American energy through American Energy Act (H.R. 2846) which promotes coal,  oil, nuclear energy and has a nodding relationship to alternative fuel development; repeals prohibition on government purchase of fuels from dirty sources like oil shale, tar sands and coal-to liquid technology; encourages “clean” coal-to-liquid technology; gives tax credits for producing renewable electricity and investment tax credits for solar energy and fuel cell properties; extends the biodiesel and renewable diesel tax credits; permits deep water drilling.

Create access to credit for business: Repeal the Financial Reform Bill and deep-six the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB); reduce the business tax depreciation schedule

Expand U.S. Exports:  Enact pending NAFTA-like trade agreements with Columbia, Korea and Panama.

“Creative” new policies to promote business growth by getting government out of the way of businesses so that they can do by themselves what they haven’t been able to do by themselves to date:: extend Bush tax cuts, cut taxes that haven’t been enacted such as taxes on certain partnership profit interests.; squash Cap-and-trade; kill ergonomics regulations, repeal drilling moratorium, end small business reporting mandates, repeal Affordable Care Act.

 

Reading one of the newspaper reports about the Roy Blunt-Robin Carnahan debate last night, I was struck by a no doubt trivial detail. At one point, talking about jobs, Blunt claimed that

Our jobs plan is over 100 pages. Secretary of Carnahan’s jobs plan is under 500 words _ you could tweet her jobs plan in four tweets,” said Blunt, referring to the Internet social networking site, Twitter.

Does he mean this Jobs Plan which can be downloaded from his campaign Webpage? Because I swear I can’t find more than 20 pages. Does he think that the linked references comprise part of the Plan? If so, I’ve got news for him – they don’t. I’ve also got to say that lots of those 20 pages don’t amount to more than boilerplate and whining about the Obama administration.

Am I really mistaken, or is this one more instance of Roy the serial liar? There are folks who just can’t resist a fib, no matter how silly. Is there another version of the “Jobs Plan,”  have I not seen it all, or is Roy one of those sad, dissembling individuals? I’m confused.

Update: The account of the debate in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch omitted Blunt’s assertion that his jobs plan had more than a hundred pages:

Blunt stressed his theme of private sector job creation, accusing Carnahan of lacking details on how she would boost the economy. He used a reference to the popular social media network, Twitter, to make his sharpest jab in the debate.

“You could tweet her jobs plan in four tweets,” he said.

An odd omission since the “four tweets” comment is part of a comparative statement.  

My two-cents on two phenomena that are getting attention on progressive blogs today:

The first is the Republican fear of debates which I discussed in an earlier post. Today over at DailyKos Laura Clawson picks up on that story, commenting on Roy Blunt’s hypocritical, dishonest posturing when it comes to debating Robin Carnahan. The money quote:

If you’re the frontrunner [sic], which Blunt still is, you know you don’t have much to gain from debates. The question is how much you think you have to lose, and if it’s worth drawing attention to that by trying to avoid public debate. Sounds like Blunt knows he has a lot to lose if Missouri’s voters see him go head to head with Carnahan.

Maybe if we work really, really hard, we can shift that equation – although I am not sure that even if he weren’t the frontrunner, Blunt wouldn’t still have more to loose than to gain if he had to go up in front of a diverse crowd and defend some of the stock GOP boilerplate he has been ladling out to the faithful.

The second development is the concerted effort of congressional Democrats to give the store away to the GOP. The Democrats’ death wish has most recently manifested itself in the decision to back away from a vote on the Bush tax giveaways for the wealthy. So what else is new? Their possible rationale perhaps? According to TPM, the idiots may have done it just because it was a winning issue:

… according to a very plugged in Senate aide, Senators debating the issue were very aware that the polling was on their side. Yet, paradoxically, this ended up tipping the balance against holding the vote. Senate Dems felt they were alreadly winning on the issue, and in the end they thought a vote risked upsetting a dynamic that was already playing in their favor.

We’ve really got to get us some better Democrats.

To give you an idea about how that ploy is playing with the base here in Missouri, you need go no further than a post by Missouri blogger Duane Graham of the Erstwhile Conservative, billiantly titled “The Democratic Valley Of Dry Bones.” The title refers to Ezekiel 37:3 which reads:

And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.

To which my response is that this is the most telling use of a biblical quotation yet. Here, however, is the passage that offers the best measure of the temperature on the left right now:

If it weren’t for the fact that a lot of innocent and hardworking folks would get hurt, I would wish the entire Democratic leadership go down in flames.  And I would wish the Democrats lose control of both legislative chambers, if the results weren’t slated to be so deleterious for already struggling Americans.  

There just aren’t enough pejoratives for such cowards, for such pusillanimous political pansies.

The angst spills off the page. The moral is simply that the markers of the progressive mood are all out there; one can only hope that Democrats start taking the readings soon. If they lose the House and/or the Senate and can’t do anything to repeal the wasteful, harmful upper bracket tax cuts, I guarantee it’ll be too late.  

…and that might imperil his own sense of outsiderness.

Heh. It appears Roy Blunt (r-lobbyists) would rather hide behind special interest attack ads:

Robin Carnahan for US Senate

For Immediate Release:

September 22, 2010

[…]

True to His Record, Congressman ‘Bailout’ Blunt Bails on Debate Package With Robin Carnahan

Robin Carnahan Accepts Debate Package With Blunt, Including Fox News Sunday and Meet The Press

Blunt Backs Out of All But 2 Debates and Refuses to Finalize Negotiations for St. Louis Public TV Debate

St. Louis – After months of claiming he will debate anytime, anywhere with Robin Carnahan, it appears that Congressman Roy Blunt is trying to fashion his own personal debate “bailout” package by refusing to take part in the very debates he called for and on the very dates he proposed. For weeks, Congressman Blunt has sidestepped and stalled the process and now failed to complete negotiations on a St. Louis Public Television debate with Robin Carnahan.

“During his 14 years in Washington, Congressman Blunt has perfected the art of DC Doublespeak and negotiated the Wall Street bailout – now he’s using his art to bail himself out of debates,” said Linden Zakula, Robin Carnahan for Senate spokesman.  “Just like on the campaign trail, Congressman Blunt wants to talk as little as possible about his 14 year Washington record of wasteful spending, corruption and sticking it to the middle class.  This refusal to agree to additional debates over the smallest of issues is a clear sign that Congressman Blunt consistently says one thing, but does another and he simply can’t be trusted.”

The Facts About Congressman Blunt’s Debate Bailout:

   *      On July 22, Robin Carnahan sent letters to all the qualified candidates proposing a series of three general election debates with all four U.S. Senate candidates in Missouri.

   *      On August 5, Congressman Blunt sent out a press release calling for 6 debates with Robin, noting that he had accepted nationally televised debates with Fox News Sunday and Meet the Press.

   *      Congressman Blunt then proposed to respective representatives dates for Meet the Press with David Gregory and Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.  Among those dates were September 26 for Fox News Sunday and September 12 for Meet the Press.  Robin Carnahan accepted those dates, but Congressman Blunt, despite living in Washington, DC, and having no travel concerns, refused to participate and instead insisted on a package of only 3 debates that could only be sponsored on Missouri Public TV stations and not network affiliates.

   *      In the interim, Robin also accepted debates hosted by the Joplin Globe and the Clayton Chamber of Commerce, both of which had major local TV and radio station partnerships so that more voters could see and hear them.

   *      Despite Robin’s desire to do more debates, Congressman Blunt’s campaign refused to consider them, so her campaign agreed to his package of three in-state debates proposed by Congressman Blunt: the Missouri Press Association Debate on October 15 and debates on St. Louis and Kansas City Public Television.

   *      In this process, Robin Carnahan’s campaign has agreed to every demand made by Congressman Blunt’s campaign.

   *      An agreement has been reached with Kansas City Public Television and all 4 candidates (including Jonathan Dine, the Libertarian candidate and Jerry Beck, the Constitution Party candidate) for the Missouri Press Association debate in October.

*”[Carnahan consultant Tony] Wyche, after we assured him of television coverage out of Joplin and Springfield, said that Carnahan would accept. Rich Chrismer, with Blunt’s campaign, did not decline our invitation. In fact he told me that Blunt had not declined any of the invitations. But, I didn’t get the yes I needed to move forward.” [Joplin Globe, 9/19/10]

Robin is running for the U.S. Senate Seat currently held by U.S. Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) who is retiring. She is currently in her second term as Missouri Secretary of State where she has worked across party lines to protect consumers by standing up to big institutions and getting more than $10 billion returned to wronged investors, and to cut red tape for small businesses so they can save resources and create more jobs. A breast cancer survivor with a background in business and law, Robin also still oversees her family’s cattle farm in Rolla, MO. For more information on Robin’s background and values, visit: http://www.RobinCarnahan.com

###

Yeah, those pointed questions could be so, you know…inconvenient.

If you were really all that, would you be afraid to stand up for what you represent? FiredUp! points out that Roy Blunt not only didn’t respond to Robin Carnahan’s invitation to debates – he later tried to tell the faithful who tune into the Jamie Allman program that Robin is the one who is afraid to debate! Say what you will about integrity, you can’t say Daddy Blunt lacks brass.

And of course, there’s Ed Martin, the archetype for frat boy trickmeisters everywhere, who is so afraid of debating Russ Carnahan that he schedules pretend debates. An understandable ploy – it’s so much easier to make points against your opponent if you don’t actually have one.

Today, again via FiredUP!, we learn that Billy Long, the Republican running for Roy Blunt’s House seat, is not only trying to get out of a series of debates with his opponent, the putative Democrat, Scott Eckersley (and, like Roy Blunt, lying about it), but he won’t even participate in an environment only dreamed about  by other GOP candidates. As of this writing, Long just doesn’t seem to be able to find time for a debate sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and moderated by a chamber member who will, get this, “ensure that we remain on topic and that it doesn’t turn into a debate format.” A debate that doesn’t have a debate format and candidates who would want that to be the case – am I missing something here?

Which brings us to the eponymous question: Why are Republicans scared to debate? I admit that it’s a rhetorical question. We all know the answer. If you were intent on sticking to your focus group tested, to-the-gut-but-well-shy-of the-brain talking points and were incapable of defending said points with facts, you probably wouldn’t want to debate either.

Which is not to say that there isn’t an actual question we should be asking: How can any citizen of Missouri really want to vote for somebody with so little faith in their own policy positions that they can’t stand up in a real debate and defend them?