Sunday, December 20, 2009

Debate Shenanigans...

There is some serious behind the scenes posturing and fighting about these debates. As I have documented before Medina is stirring up trouble on the debates because that is the typical long shot candidate tactic (link)... complain about how unfair it is that they aren't allowed to debate because the big mean establishment is keeping them down...

It is not a bad idea this year with so many people so upset about the establishment of anything... establishment politicians, institutions, companies... anything establishment is considered bad these days. Hope and change...

Even Obama is bad to those same people who voted for him now that he is the establishment.

To hear it from the campaigns there is a lot more going on than is being reported...

For example, Rick and Kay are doing a dance of when they can debate for various debates... even a couple of them up in Washington... from what I gather there is a bunch of positioning, and some counter intuitive things happening...

Despite Rick's purported double digit lead his team is pushing for more debates with Kay behind the scenes because they feel confident he will destroy her... and despite Kay trailing by a good margin against the incumbent she is doing her best to avoid one on one debates with Rick alone...

Kay's team also thinks that Rick will be less likely to agree to debates if Medina is included so they are publicly saying "bring her on" knowing Medina being invited to debate will likely not happen...

But if it does they believe it will be cause for Rick to not agree to a debate... which would mean that Kay could also get out of debating. Kay wants to debate strongly, but a lot of her handlers simply know she will get eaten alive and therefore do not want her to debate.

Rick's peeps aren't doing anything to promote Medina's involvement, but they apparently aren't doing anything to actively exclude her either. They don't really care that much because from what I hear they are basically turning their attention to the general election, but they prefer to have Kay one on one...

It is funny just how eager Kay's spokesman is to flack for Medina...


Incredible miscalculation as usual from Kay's camp. They come off as so eager to pump up Medina that Kay's message gets entirely lost...

From what I have been told, there have been some great venues being discussed including national television which would actually reach a huge number of voters and influential people both inside and outside of Texas... although I am told a debate on national television is a long shot.

Rick and his team believe he will mop the floor with Kay so they are pushing hard for more high profile debates which is a very different strategy from 2006 for them where they pushed for one debate on the Friday before the Red River Shootout...

From what I have been told some of these venues and sponsors have thrown out a handful of dates to the campaigns, and Rick's campaign has been eager to say yes to nearly all the possible dates while Kay has been quick to say no to most of them... the available dates from the campaigns have not overlapped according to one of the organizers of one of these potential debates in the greater Dallas area... and they are running out of options.

The other component would be that Kay would have the right to withdraw from any debate at the last minute if important votes in Washington were to come up... and Rick's campaign has been eager to accommodate and agree to that request in early talks...

1 comment:

  1. who's the only candidate that knows 9/11 was an inside job by our own government and the GOP establishment? medina! let debra debate!

    ReplyDelete

Hey now, campaign characters. Be nice. I know a lot of you on both sides, so I don't want any overly foul language, personal attacks on anyone other than the candidates themselves, or other party fouls. I will moderate the heck out of you if you start breaking the bounds of civility.