Democrat Jerry Brown today accepted the invitation for the proposed Sept. 13 Blogosphere Debate with Republican Meg Whitman, featuring questioning by Calbuzz, FlashReport and Calitics. Brown also accepted nine other debate offers and called on Whitman to join him.
Sources in the Whitman campaign have not been encouraging to Calbuzz about their candidate’s participation in the Blogosphere Debate at San Jose State University, with sponsorship by SJSU, the School of Social Sciences and the Commonwealth Club silicon Valley. But now that Brown has accepted, perhaps they’ll take up the challenge.
Brown also accepted debate offers from: Faith Forum; CPR/KCRA/Univision/Sacramento Bee/ UC Davis; CBS; KTVU/Chronicle/KQED; PPIC/CBA; Dominican University/NBC; La Opinion/KPCC; The Women’s Conference, and ABC/League of Women Voters.
“Partisan bickering and attack-dog politics have created an awful mess in Sacramento, and I think Meg and I now have an opportunity to change the tenor of politics in California by conducting a responsible campaign that shows people there is a better way to do business,” Brown said in a written release.
“Every one of these debates is hosted by a credible organization, guaranteeing a fair and open forum,” Brown continued. “There is no reason not to participate, no reason not to say what we really mean, and show the voters who we are.”
UPDATE 3:40 PM: From Sarah Pompei of the Whitman campaign — “We’re happy to see that Jerry Brown has finally accepted Meg’s challenge to debate at Dominican University in October. While Jerry Brown has been on the sidelines, Meg has been busily campaigning in front of real voters for a year and a half. We are excited to review every debate option on a case by case basis and we will be weighing in accordingly. The fact is there will be plenty of time for debates, and we are committed to having strong substantive debates, but we’re running out of time to hear what Jerry Brown plans to do about job creation, taxes, pension reform, government spending, and so many other issues.”
Harvard, where she earned a master’s degree at the Divinity School after graduating from Macalester College in Minnesota (Walter Mondale ’50, Kofi Anan ’61).
3 debate (at San Jose State) between the aforementioned Whitman and Brown featuring questioners from Calbuzz, FlashReport and Calitics — the three leading original content political web sites covering California politics.
