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California: Davis-Simon debates stall. Only a pair of meetings scheduled for television.
Sacramento Bee via Oakland Tribune ^
| September 8, 2002
Posted on 09/08/2002 6:16:48 PM PDT by John Jorsett
SACRAMENTO -- Chances are dimming that California voters will see much of Gov. Gray Davis and Republican challenger Bill Simon in live televised debates before the Nov. 5 election, at least not in prime time or in English.
The two campaigns have not discussed specific debate terms directly, and the Democratic governor appears ready to agree to only a pair of face-offs, one at noon in early October and another on the Spanish-language network Univision at a time to be determined.
"That's going to be a disservice to just countless numbers of voters in most regions of the state who will never get a chance to see Mr. Simon and Gov. Davis side-by-side, live and in person in their living room," said Stan Statham, president of the California Broadcasters Association, which has helped stage past gubernatorial debates. Four years ago, candidates Davis and Dan Lungren met four times on television between July and October, an unprecedented number of debates for a gubernatorial election.
But the governor's race featured no incumbent that year. This year, Davis has a lead in the polls, millions of dollars of campaign cash for paid television advertisements and presumably less incentive to offer the challenger free shots at him on the tube.
Davis campaign spokesman Roger Salazar said the governor has less time to meet an ambitious debate schedule this year compared to 1998 because of his official duties. Davis must act on nearly 1,000 bills before a Sept. 30 deadline, and then has but five weeks to spend on the campaign trail, Salazar said.
Simon's campaign has suggested up to six televised debates staged throughout the state, with specific, predetermined issues to be discussed at each. It also has called for the inclusion of Green Party candidate Peter Camejo. The Davis campaign has rejected both notions.
California Republican Party adviser Sean Walsh said Davis is ducking debates generally and avoiding a live joint appearance in the early evening, when the most viewers would tune in.
"Davis is not a good debater," Walsh said. "Davis' problem is the more you see him on TV, the less you like him."
Salazar suggested that it is Simon who should duck the debates.
"He wants the exposure, but given how weak his grasp is of the issues, I'm not really sure that when he gets into it that he's going to want more of what we have to deliver," Salazar said.
Including Camejo or any other third-party candidate is "out of the question," Salazar said, noting that none of the minor-party candidates has come close to achieving the 15 percent rating in public polls that serves as a threshold for presidential debates.
"Camejo from our perspective is just a Republican pipe dream," he said.
"They're trying to build him up because they know they can't win on their own."
Statham said it is important that the debates be carried live, and be broadcast in the early evening hours -- not at noon on Oct. 7 (a Monday), as Davis has proposed.
"If you're between 'Days of Our Lives' and 'The Young and the Restless,' two things happen to gubernatorial debates: you don't get as large an audience as you would hope, and the audience you do get is not the audience that goes to the polls and votes," he said.
Candidates would speak English in the proposed Univision debate, but their voices would be largely dubbed over by Spanish translations.
Despite the four debates held in 1998, subsequent analysis showed that they may not have been as helpful to voters as hoped. Only in San Diego and Sacramento did viewers see all four meetings live on broadcast television. No Los Angeles station -- broadcast or cable -- carried the campaign's last two debates in September and October.
A May 1998 poll by the Public Policy Institute of California showed 85 percent of voters believed debates would help them evaluate candidates. But in a follow up survey taken after the third 1998 debate, three out of four voters said the televised match-ups had little or no effect on them.
TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: California
KEYWORDS: calgov2002; davis; debates; knife; simon
To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
ping
To: John Jorsett
I hope it's OK to reply to you just to say "hello" for right now - I'm brand new to the forum, in California, and hope we can turn something around in this state.
Thanks,
To: hopin4change
What part of California do you live in? I'm in Tarzana, in the San Fernando Valley.
To: John Jorsett
The Simon and Davis circus is all a sham anyway.
Why does anyone care, since the new info from terrorist manefestiveo clearly states that the next target is the Andreas Fault, culled from the script of a Superman movie.
The Queda boogfaboos are planning on sinking all of the "unclean" sex perverts of California into the Pacific Ocean and then having the multitudes of "once peaceful" Muslims who have infiltrated along with the Chinese split the once great state into two "provinces", using the lazy and stoned population as blonde sex-slaves, regardless of gender, since that is what they read in E! Magazine and see from satellite feeds.
The rest will be used as slave labor in the vegetable, fruit and livestock trade to feed their brethren overseas, using the Chinese connection all the while for transportation of the white boys and girls along with the foodstuffs.
The entire program of the Chino/Islamic dirty network of the deed can be found near
here..., unless they have just moved in the last eight hours...
5
posted on
09/08/2002 6:50:07 PM PDT
by
Vidalia
To: Vidalia
I know I'm probably being too daring, being new and all, but is your post serious?
To: hopin4change
I know I'm probably being too daring, being new and all, but is your post serious? I think Vidalia is just having a little fun. Everybody knows the real conspirators are the Turks and Tasmanians.
To: John Jorsett
Good one - OK, everyone have your fun with the newbie - I'll be better armed next time. ;)
To: John Jorsett
9
posted on
09/08/2002 7:59:58 PM PDT
by
RonDog
To: hopin4change
Flirts of all, Congratulations on becoming a member of one of the only world wide sites that knows how to do an international board the right way.
Welcome to the sometimes Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World of the mostest Free Republic internet site found on the entire world wide webosity.
From here on out you are not on your own, for others will come to your assistance when you have a flat tirade, a dead sparkened plug, or even (God forbid) a consequential course of discord.
Now, as to your interrogative, ..."Ya gotta go to the link, and the truth is there"...
"2002-09-07"...hey, that's my socsec number...!
I don't think so, but I could be wrong this month...
10
posted on
09/08/2002 8:01:17 PM PDT
by
Vidalia
To: John Jorsett; *calgov2002; Carry_Okie; SierraWasp; Gophack; eureka!; ElkGroveDan; ...
To: John Jorsett
Davis is not a good debater," Walsh said. "Davis' problem is the more you see him on TV, the less you like him."
AWWWWWWWWwwwwwww ....
DUMP DAVI$ & the Den of Socialists
GO SIMON
To: John Jorsett
I'm just going to note that if Davis wasn't scared to debate Simon, he would not have allowed so few debates, and he certainly wouldn't have made one of them at a time when nobody's watching TV.
I saw him confront the press at the Nixon Library a week ago, and I thought he did very well facing some tough questioning. I think he would change a few minds if allowed to debate Davis on prime time.
D
To: John Jorsett
specific, predetermined issues to be discussed Predetermined issues are okay, but it is even better to have a fair moderator and a balanced set of questions.
I only saw the 3rd GOP gubernatorial primary debate earlier this year, with the panel of liberal interviewers from the LA Times, KNX, and an LA television station. The "debate" disintegrated into a one-topic show about abortion.
Given that the only English debate between Simon and Davis will be hosted by the LA Times, I have no confidence that any important issues will be discussed; they might just throw some softbals to Davis while ignoring his major shortcomings and corruption while focusing on magnifying minor imperfections of Simon.
14
posted on
09/10/2002 6:58:10 PM PDT
by
heleny
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