Askins turns down debate offer in HD-6
Just in… Alabama HD-6 Democrat candidate Jenny Askins has officially turned down an offer to debate Republican Phil Williams on WHNT. No word yet on why she declined the invitation. How could Askins represent HD-6 and stand up for her constituents if she can’t even stand up against a lone challenger? Maybe after their dismal showing in the HD-6 primary the Democrats are just going to mail it in.
Why would an underdog candidate refuse the opportunity to get in front of voters? She would only stand to gain from the event, right? Well, here’s the best explanation I can come up with. The Democrats saw the large GOP turn out in the primary relative to their own. Williams is a successful businessman, which plays well in a time of economic uncertainty, and his campaign is well funded. It could be that the Democrats realized their only path to victory isn’t by engaging Williams directly, but by playing possum. Turn down the debate offer, maintain a low profile, and keep this race out of the news. Lull Republican voters into thinking this one is in the bag. Then launch a last minute get out the vote effort and hope that Republicans can’t respond in short order.
Moral of the story: Republicans need to sprint through the finish line on this one. Don’t pull up early.
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Told ya she was waiting for Joe Turnham to tell her what to do.
Sounds somewhat like the Laura Hall camapign, doesn’t it. BTW, when is this election and was this a Demo or Repub seat in the past?
“campaign” – this blog needs spell check Brian.
It certainly does sound like the Laura Hall campaign strategy. The election is July 14th. Everyone votes on the same day! :)
The seat was previously held by Sue Schmitz (D) who is now a convicted felon.
I had a spell check feature and people complained. Now I don’t have one… Ah, the joys of running a blog!
You might want to consider switching browsers to Firefox. It has a built in spell check feature that works when you fill out forms (except for at LiA for some strange reason).
From AL.com:
Lame, lame, lame.
I don’t know how many people watch WHNT or, more specifically, how many HD-6 residents watch WHNT. Let’s say that 1,000 potential voters would have watched a debate. We’ll assume that the half hour debate would take about 4 hours out of Askins’ day. How much “face to face” loss would she suffer? HD-6 is pretty rural so I would guess it takes an average of at least 5 minutes per house to go door to door. That means going to the debate would prevent her from meeting 48 people. So she’s skipping the chance to get in front of roughly 1,000 voters so that she can meet about 1/20th that amount?! Dumb.
She must not know much about the actual issues and was scared of looking ignorant.
It should be no shock that Joe Turnham wouldn’t let her debate. Check out the interview with her on YouTube… her reply to every single question is: “Um, well, I guess I would just listen to my constituents on that issue because I, um, don’t think I should go to Montgomery with any preconceived notions.”
Her true message: “Hey, who needs ideas… just look how cute I am!”
That’s one thing she does very, very well, I must say.
On July 14 Phil is going to take Jenny down to Chinatown and it will be a most likely similar voter turnout as the Sanford/Hall vote proportionally speaking.
Askins must know she is on a sinking ship and can only do so much at this point which by not doing what every other candidate does by participating in a televised debate she is shooting herself in the foot and has to know that to a certain extent. Too lazy to do the debate prep and lie about what her platform and party “really” stand for. Be glad when she is just another party loyalist has-been.
It’s good for candidates to have as much personal contact with voters as possible, individual contact alone doesn’t give voters a full picture of a candidate. During door-to-door campaigning, a candidate doesn’t have take public positions on anything. If a candidate wants to be deceptive, they can just tell each person what they perceive they want to hear, and they might tell the next person something different. Nobody knows what you tell others. It’s an effective (although dishonest) strategy for someone with a nice appearance and who doesn’t want to take a public position on certain issues. If you do high-profile public debates or media interviews, then you have to take positions on issues, and if you’ve been at someone’s door telling someone something different, it can cost you votes.
This stealth campaigning is a new wrinkle to me. I would suspect the Democrat strategy is to not help energize the Republican voters, identify their own voters & get ‘em out. Phil Williams has to also identify his voters & get ‘em out.
I sure hope stealth campaigns don’t become the winning strategy of the future, because I don’t think I can do it.
Are you kidding, Mike? The Times would never let you get away with it if you tried. Only Democrats (e.g., Laura Hall) are allowed to run substance-free campaigns with nary a whimper from the media.
Ben,
I don’t think I could do a substance-free stealth campaign if I tried. Somebody would as ask me a question and I wouldn’t be able to resist the impulse to answer.
This is like watching Algore run for President. All we need now is for Laura Hall to offer to help Jenny Askins. Perhaps Hall could suggest calling the constituiants stupid. It worked so well for her.