Frontrunners Avoid Debates

By Amy Hart in News on Feb 2, 2006 5:43PM

Judy Baar Topinka and Governor Blagojevich are apparently enjoying their leads in the polls and don’t want to say anything in debates that would put their primary victories in jeopardy or give their competition opportunities to be heard.

Yesterday the League of Women Voters announced it cancelled a March 7 televised debate between Blago and primary opponent Edwin Eisendrath after the governor ignored repeated invitations to appear. Eisendrath was game, but the League says Blago would not commit.

Blago campaign spokesperson Doug Scofield, who moonlights as a lobbyist, said the campaign has made “no final decision on other [debate] requests” and will still appear with Eisendrath before the editorial board of the Tribune.

Topinka recently bowed out of a February 10 debate with her Republican opponents, but we can cut her a bit of slack because she is scheduled to appear in future debates. However, we do wonder if her less than stellar appearance in the first Republican debate last week convinced her campaign they needed time to regroup.

As for Blago... Come on, man. We want to see you debate Eisendrath. Show us what you've got. What are you afraid of? If we were Bill O’Reilly we would call you a coward.