What do you get when you have a gubernatorial candidate forum without Governor Perry? Pretty much the same as what you’d have with him, but without the distraction of his pathetic attempts to defend his record.
The League of Women Voters forum before about 275 people at the Kathleen C. Cailloux Theater in Kerrville gave Democrat Bill White and Libertarian Kathie Glass, both of Houston, the opportunity to make their case against Perry without rebuttal. The event was carried only on local television, but was available statewide on the Internet.
White chastised Perry, saying he has run his office as a “political machine” and a “revolving door” for lobbyists. White said Perry wants to avoid accountability for his record of 10 years in office.
“Rick Perry will see how many times he can say (President) Obama and liberal in slick T.V. commercials and see if that will get him by with 51 percent of the vote,” White said. “In prior elections, he attacks his opponents with negative campaigns, takes credit for what’s good and accepts no responsibility for a lot of mismanagement.”
White said Perry should not be allowed to avoid forums where the questions come from citizens in the audience.
“If you don’t have the guts to get up here on stage and answer to the taxpayers who pay your salary, then you shouldn’t be re-elected governor,” White said.
That’s more or less what I expected. As you can see from Phillip’s liveblog, there was a fair amount of substance in the Perry-less conversation, but the story is what was said about him. You’d think a candidate would want to be there for himself and get his own licks in rather than depend on his spokesbeing after the fact, but then you’re not Rick Perry. For which you are no doubt grateful.
The real question is: was this debate televised? where could people watch it? Will the local news provide clips of it? Will the PBS channels rerun it? Is it available on youtube (or Texasdebates.org)? Where is the transcript?
I think Rick Perry is 100% right. If there is no real effort by League of Women Voters to make video footage of this debate easily accessible, then this debate simply doesn’t matter. Sure, there might be liveblogging and a single news article by the dailies, but so what! People don’t read, and if they do, all they will remember is, “Rick Perry didn’t show up because Bill White is hiding something from his taxes.”
Rick Perry didn’t want to come to the debate because it would have taken up his allotted 7 hours per work week. I’m sure he’s verrrrrry picky about how he spends those precious few 7 hours.
what is Perry 100% right about?
is it that Republicans can’t or don’t read?