Republican political candidates in Michigan continue to hide and do everything possible to avoid debating their opponents and avoid a side-by-side comparison as they try and run the clock out because they believe they have a large lead, bought with a massive influx of cash from corporations.
For the most part, journalists have let them get away with it, but WDIV-TV4 anchor Devin Scillian called them out Sunday on his weekly political program “Flash Point.” He invited the top of the ticket – Governor, Attorney General and Secretary of State – to debate on the show. But as usual, only the Democrats accepted.
Scillian relented and allowed GOP nominee Rick “Chief Executive Outsourcer” Snyder to appear separately on a prime-time Flash Point last week, and WDIV made sure big, mean Lansing Mayor and Democratic Gubernatorial nominee Virg Bernero got no where near the Outsourcer.
But When the Republican AG and SOS candidates declined to appear on the set at the same time with the Democratic nominees, Scillian - to his credit - held his ground, and said whoever shows up will go on the air in the state’s largest media market.
Predictably, only AG Democratic nominee David Leyton and Democratic SOS nominee Jocelyn Benson showed up to defend their positions and went on the air, and the Republicans chickened out.
On Sunday’s “Two guys named Joe” podcast, Joe DiSano and Joe Munem summed it up best. They said that if the Republicans refuse to debate then they can’t talk about transparency, they can’t talk about openness and they can’t talk about being accessible to voters. They can talk about those things, but they will be hypocrites.
The rest of the conservative, corporate media has failed to point out this hypocrisy. Let’s hope the voters see the truth.
