October 19,2010
by: David Montgomery
Rapid City will complete the entire election campaign without a debate between Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin and Kristi Noem after a planned debate at KOTA-TV was canceled.
The two candidates had been tentatively scheduled to face off Oct. 12 in Rapid City for an hour-long debate, half broadcast on TV and the rest streamed on KOTA’s website.
The Herseth Sandlin campaign confirmed their attendance at the debate Aug. 22, according to internal e-mails released by KOTA. The Noem campaign indicated in July that it could do a debate between Oct. 11 and Oct. 13 but never confirmed Noem’s attendance. On Sept. 21, Noem campaign manager Joshua Shields told KOTA that Noem wasn’t available for the Oct. 12 debate after not replying to at least two e-mails over two weeks.
Shields said a conflict with a Siouxland Republican Women event in Sioux Falls prevented Noem from appearing.
Herseth Sandlin cited a scheduling conflict in declining a proposed debate at the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association meeting in early September.
But Herseth Sandlin accused Noem of “hiding out” because her “debate performances in August demonstrated she has little to offer when it comes to policy specifics” in a news release.
Shields dismissed the charge.
“Kristi and Congresswoman Herseth Sandlin have debated five times. They’ll debate at least two more times,” he said. “Kristi has consistently shown the clear differences between her and Congresswoman Herseth Sandlin’s record.”
KOTA news director John Petersen declined to comment.
Gary Aguiar, a professor of political science at South Dakota State University, said the sight of an incumbent criticizing a challenger for not debating is somewhat unusual -- and a possible reflection of polls showing a tight race.
“In general, when incumbents are ahead, they prefer not to debate a challenger because it gives additional publicity to what usually is a relative unknown,” Aguiar said. “When incumbents feel threatened, we have seen in other races that they will debate because they feel like they have to show the differences between themselves and their challenger.”
Debates generally have little impact on a campaign, Aguiar said, but can help change voters’ perceptions of candidates.
Contact David Montgomery at 394-8329 or david.montgomery@rapidcityjournal.com
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_56a7c162-dbda-11df-b158-001cc4c002e0.html
.jpg)
Can South Dakota voters trust what Kristi Noem says? This blog will chronicle the difference between what Kristi Noem says, and what Kristi Noem does. Unfortunately for South Dakota voters, there’s often a lot of difference between the two.
No comments:
Post a Comment