Some debates are more equal than others. That’s one political strategy that plenty of candidates for higher office have embraced, and Attorney General Martha Coakley is no exception.
Coakley has participated in two forums with state Sen. Scott Brown, the Republican candidate, and Joseph L. Kennedy, the Libertarian candidate, sponsored by WBZ-TV and WBZ Radio. But when the League of Women of Voters of Massachusetts, the 90-year-old nonpartisan, grassroots political group, came calling, it couldn’t get an answer. The League cancelled its US Senate candidates’ forum scheduled for January 13 at Faneuil Hall after Coakley did not meet the organization’s deadline. (The special US Senate election is on January 19.)
It was “just no decision, no decision, no decision,” says Massachusetts League President Zaxaro Bennett of the campaign’s failure to give them a definitive thumbs-up or -down about the Boston forum. With no indication whether Coakley would participate, the volunteer-reliant organization didn’t think it could pull together the event in the short window of time available after the holidays.
The other challengers accepted the League’s invitation almost immediately after the December primaries. All of the candidates had been notified about the January event at the League’s Democratic candidates’ forum at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in November. Coakley also did not participate in that event, citing a previous commitment.
We were informed that they would not be able to hold the [Boston] debate after a particular deadline had passed, but we were still working to schedule that debate,” says Coakley campaign spokesman Corey Welford.
He confirmed Coakley’s participation in three additional January debates, including one organized by WTTK-FM of Boston. Another two media-sponsored debates are also the works. Welford added that Coakley is participating in more debates than most recent candidates for statewide offices.
Is the League concerned by the attorney general’s decision to participate in media-sponsored debates and not theirs? Bennett chalks up this development to the current political climate rather than the decision made by any one individual candidate.
“The issue is because we are nonpartisan,” Bennett says, explaining that political parties and candidates don’t know what to expect in a debate from an independent organization that solicits questions from the public and its members. “They can’t control any aspect of the situation, and it’s hard for them to basically go forward politically and strategically in their campaigns. Which is very disappointing because there is nothing untoward or hidden or anything about what we’re trying to do, it’s simply informing the public on the issues.”
The national League of Women Voters has been struggling with candidates, political parties, and debates for decades. In the 1980s, in a move to exert more control over presidential debates, the Democratic and Republican parties created the Commission on Presidential Debates, effectively elbowing the League out of the debate business. (Jimmy Carter’s refusal to debate Ronald Reagan and John Anderson in 1980 in a League-sponsored forum that went on without him has been cited as a factor in his defeat.)
Some critics of the current presidential debates have called for the contests to be returned to the League, whose format is considered more demanding for candidates than media-sponsored forums.
But campaigns aren’t generally keen on debates no matter what their political stripe. Here’s how Joe Garecht, a Republican political consultant, answers the question “Should you debate at all?” on his Local Victory Web site:
The Massachusetts League is moving on with planning for a slate of gubernatorial debates next year.
