Decision Virginia

Ryan Nobles – bio | email

Let the debate challenges begin! Bob McDonnell’s campaign formally presented the Creigh Deeds campaign with a proposal for the two to meet in a series of 10 debates in a variety of locations throughout the commonwealth. At this point the two campaigns have only agreed to one forum, hosted by the Virginia Bar Association on July 25th at the Homestead Resort, which the McDonnell campaign pointed out is in Bath County, where Deeds lives. The VBA debate is a Virginia tradition, but is held in a far reaching part of Virginia and is not broadcast statewide.

In the release McDonnell is quoted as saying that he hopes “Creigh will agree that Virginians deserve to hear from the two candidates for Virginia’s highest office directly, and together, as often as is possible.”

So far the Deeds campaign has not responded to the salvo, saying they only received the request this morning. It appears right around the same time reporters did.

The McDonnell campaign has already laid out the dates times and locations of the 10 debates and they are all events that have been proposed and put together by independent outlets, not by either campaign. Aside from the VBA debate, none of the 9 other proposed debates have been agreed to by both campaigns.

**UPDATE**

The Deeds camp has responded to the McDonnell challenge by saying they are “eager” to compare the two candidates records and will continue to work with independent groups and media outlets to determine the best forums to participate in. It appears though, that Deeds is not quite ready to take part in all 10 of the debates McDonnell suggested.

Campaign spokesman Jared Leopold said in a written statement that Deeds expects “the number of debates to be in line with precedent from the 2005 Kaine-Kilgore and Deeds-McDonnell debate schedules.”

In case you are wondering there were three debates in both the Kaine-Kilgore and Deeds-McDonnell races in 2005.

The full statement from the Deeds camp can be found after the jump..

**UPDATE ENDS**

While we can take McDonnell at his word that his goal is to give voters every opportunity to hear from the candidates, there is obviously some strategy at play. I asked people on twitter what the McDonnell team’s goal was got some good feedback. Here is a response from someone who leans to the right and another from someone who leans to the left:

Norm Leahy- @tertiumquids trying to prove he’s not Jerry Kilgore?

Laura Harrison- @LauraPocketDem I’m all for debates but 10 seems a little excessive. They’d probably just give their same talking points 10 times.

I’ll update you when we hear how the Deeds campaign plans to respond. The full release, including the list of proposed debates from the McDonnell campaign, can be found after the jump…

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