Actually there were many primary debates and she participated in many of them. Certainly the one before the primary and the one last sunday. I think she stated why she was not participating in the debates that featured the one candidate I’m sure you know about.
Personally I am not really all that jazzed up about any of these three people. Also, some people on FR have said that Johnson endorsed Deal. Also all Johnson (who I was impressed with in the debate I saw) did was click the “like” button for Deal on his FB page (using that logic I guess I endorse Blondie). Hardly an endorsement. For me Deal reminds me too much of Huckabee. He seems like that southern baptist preacher who might be saying all the right things but there just something about him that seems a little shady.
But there is nothing genuine about Karen Handel, who is a puff of crusading-but-mysterious hope and change with little history to go on. Ducking the big televised debate just because Ray McBerry was there seems a wee bit contrived to me, and conveyed an Obama-esque sense of superiority and entitlement. Handel's sole trick is to slander her opponents.
In the end, I'll rely on Nathan Deal's stellar voting record, the solid backing of his long-term constituents, and the word of Lynn Westmoreland, my Congressman.