Nye-Drake spar over media coverage
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While most of Virginia’s political theater Thursday was supposedly playing out in Fairfax between Mark Warner and Jim Gilmore, an interesting sub-plot to the 2008 Virginia campaign also took place in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District.
The dust-up surrounds Monday’s debate at “high noon” at the Virginia Club in downtown Norfolk.
According to the Drake campaign, there was an understanding that media would be allowed to cover the event. However, they claim that Nye was refusing to debate if the media would be there.
Early yesterday afternoon, Corry Bliss, Drake’s campaign manager issued this scathing indictment of Glenn Nye:
“What does Glenn Nye have to hide? Is he trying to hide his true positions from the voters? Congresswoman Drake supports allowing, and in fact encourages, print and television media to attend all debates. There should be no “secret debates” and Nye’s insistence on banning media from debates is baffling. Inexplicably, for weeks now Glenn Nye’s campaign has threatened to withdraw from the Virginia Club debate if journalists and video recordings are allowed. I guess Glenn missed this lesson at Georgetown, but Congressional debates are to be open to the media. Period. If Glenn Nye is afraid to debate Thelma Drake on the record he should not be running for Congress.”
Something happened though in three hours because later in the afternoon another press release arrived from the Drake camp, this one striking a different tone:
“In a surprising turn of events, Glenn Nye has yet again changed his mind. He will now attend Monday’s debate, but only if the press is invited- a remarkable position considering he spent the past several weeks threatening to not show up if the press was invited. Stay tuned for further developments.”
The Nye campaign is incredulous to these charges.
Nye campaign manager Rick Fromberg said that Glenn Nye has always been looking towards a fair and open debate about the issues.
“We’ll be there, as long as the press is invited,” said Fromberg, referencing a letter sent to the Virginia Club earlier this week.
Clearly, as the campaign gets closer and closer to Election Day, the respective campaigns are communicating less and less.
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Gee, wasn’t it Thema Drake that would not debate David Ashe at the VBCCO candidate forum? This lead to my placing a sign in my yard that read “No Debate Drake” and a string of Pilot editorials.
I believe that if a person seeks to serve the public they should always be willing to debate the issues in public - and on TV too. The more informed the voters are, the better they are to make a good decision at the ballot box.
I like Thelma Drake. She is my Congressperson.
The problem appears to me to come from campaign staff that feel they should direct their candidates to avoid debates and forums if they feel it is not to their candidate’s advantage.
Gee - holding elections is not always to the advantage of an incumbent, I suppose campaign managers would want to do away with those too?
Nope.
Because then THEY would not have a job.
I have found the public is best served when the public can ask candidates questions and when the candidates can actual DEBATE with EACH OTHER.
I am glad to read that this time Thelma Drake’s staff appears to support greater public access to the views of their candidate.
Yeah, but Reid. Nye’s a challenger with no name ID. He should be begging for media coverage. It’s not like the media won’t bend over backwards to make him seem like a mental giant.
That is, if he ever gives an answer that’s not “I agree with Congresswoman Drake” or one of his vague “We need a long term strategy” non-answers.
What do you mean no name recognition? I loved him as the “Science Guy”.
Reid, Drake debated Ashe more than 10 times - and won 55-45 as I recall. She suckered Kellam into debates and he agreed to them until he finally realized she was just making him look stupid…not too hard to do…then he stopped coming to them. Nye is completely freaked out about debates for some reason. Evidently, his campaign doesn’t think he’s very good at it. These debates are boring - no one even shows up. The Pilot calls the last one cordial for Pete’s sake.