"What?! I actually have to earn the right to be a congressman?!"
Dear friends,
In a recent editorial, the Ripon Commonwealth Press lambasted State Senator Glenn Grothman's unwillingness to debate his Democratic challenger, County Executive Mark Harris:
While Harris has accepted six other invitations for debates, including one offered by the Center for Politics and the People at Ripon College, Grothman has said he may agree to only one more. That’s too bad, given that the district extends as far south as Watertown, 75 miles north to Neenah, east to Manitowoc and 135 miles west to Adams County.
Grothman argues that “I think most people know where I stand” as he has served in the Legislature for the past 21 years. But that argument is weak, given that Grothman’s voting address for most of his tenure in the state Assembly and Senate was West Bend. As that city is outside the Sixth District, Grothman is more of a household name in Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner’s district than he is in Oshkosh, Sheboygan, Montello and Ripon.
... Grothman knows that this district leans Republican, but not overwhelmingly — it voted for Romney over Obama by 7.3 points in 2012 but chose Obama over McCain four years earlier by .1 percent.
Better for him tactically to leave the Democrat in the shadows. Harris believes that the more exposure he gets, the more voters may see him as the Petri-style moderate he professes to be. (And that claim may not be just rhetoric; strangely, Petri has not endorsed his fellow Republican would-be successor.)
Later on, in the vein of the famous Lincoln–Douglas debates, the editorial went on to suggest a compromise of seven future meeting between the two candidates:
So Harris seeks 11 debates. While that may seem a bit much ... [but] Grothman’s insistence on no more than two is too meager for an election in which both candidates are relatively unknown to most of the electorate.
Absent more than two debates, voters only can learn about the candidates from any free media they receive and from the shallow, vacuous 30-second spots that, at best, give voters distorted views of the candidates’ records and positions.
How about a number somewhere between two and 11?
How about seven debates?
That’s how many debates were held for another state senator and his rival. The guy who won that election didn’t fare too badly.
He went on to become president — the first Republican president in the nation. Then he freed the slaves and ended a Civil War.
Lincoln’s seven debates is preferable to Grothman’s two, one of which isn’t yet scheduled and the other held behind closed doors. A meager two debates is acceptable only for a candidate who doesn’t want you to know too much about him or his opponent.
I wholeheartedly agree with this editorial and I urge you all to make sure State Senator Grothman's Rose Garden Strategy is an utter failure by supporting Mark Harris' campaign through election day.
Sincerely,
Edgeworth
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