REPUBLICANS MAKE “BIZARRE” “DIVA-ESQUE DEBATE DEMANDS” TO AVOID “MEAN QUESTIONS”

Lou Barletta, Jake Corman, Bill McSwain, and Dave White’s desperate ploy to hide their extreme and unpopular agenda from everyone but Trump and his MAGA extremists has epically backfired — and even their fellow candidates are calling them out for it. 

PENNSYLVANIA — Well, four of the many GOP candidates for Governor are finally realizing what has been clear for months: they aren’t ready for primetime. Lou Barletta, Jake Corman, Bill McSwain, and Dave White have decided that they only will speak to certain people, and if Pennsylvanians aren’t asking questions they want to answer, then they simply won’t be bothered to answer them.

Republican gubernatorial candidates have already skipped debates, dodged questions, been called out for misleading Pennsylvanians, and the PA GOP even held their state committee meeting “behind closed doors.” Now, Barletta, Corman, McSwain, and White are once again emphasizing that if you aren’t Trump, they won’t listen to you, and if you aren’t the MAGA base, they don’t care about you. While the far-right candidates desperately try to hide from “mean questions,” they’re even getting called out by their fellow GOP candidates for their “diva-esque debate demands,” and for being “afraid to debate.”

In case you missed it, check out some of the coverage from the GOP gubernatorial candidates’ latest desperate attempt to make it out of the “Trump Primary,” while hiding their extreme and unpopular agenda from Pennsylvanians.

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Pennsylvania Republicans running for governor want a safe space for their debates

By Andrew Seidman, 03/22/22

Bullish on their chances to take back the governor’s mansion in November after eight years of Democrat Tom Wolf’s administration, Republicans are wary of giving presumptive Democratic nominee Josh Shapiro any potential fodder for the general election. So the campaign managers for four of the leading candidates wrote a letter this week informing news organizations that potential debate moderators must meet certain criteria.

For starters, they must be registered Republicans and Pennsylvania residents.

They also “must not have spoken negatively about any of the candidates on stage” or work for “an organization that has maligned one of the candidates,” reads the letter. It was signed by campaign managers for former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain, former Delaware County Councilman Dave White, and Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman.

The letter, first reported by PoliticsPA late Monday, didn’t say how the campaigns would determine whether a given organization had “maligned” one or more of the candidates. One GOP source close to the process said the campaigns hadn’t yet figured out how they’d enforce that provision, while another said such a situation would likely be obvious to all involved.

The letter said prospective moderators cannot have endorsed or donated to one of the candidates, and must give the candidates at least 30 seconds to deliver responses to each question.

[…]

Marisa Nahem, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, said voters “deserve better than extreme and out-of-touch politicians too scared to answer basic questions.”

PennLive: Pa. GOP governor candidates’ debate rules call for Republican moderator, no ill will

By Jan Murphy, 03/22/22

As if the number of gubernatorial candidates vying for the Republican nomination this year isn’t unusual enough, Tuesday brought forth another unusual twist in this crowded primary contest.

Four of the nine candidates seeking the GOP nomination made it clear that they won’t grace a debate stage unless four specific conditions are met – three that deal with the moderator and one with the debate format.

[…]

Afraid to debate?

But four of the five GOP gubernatorial candidates not party to the rules said they were not consulted about the conditions nor would they have agreed to them if they had been.

Candidate Nche Zama’s campaign manager Tom Whitehead saw the rules as an excuse to avoid debates. “Unfortunately, campaigns that have a lot of money behind them would rather avoid debates and just buy media time instead,” he said.

Candidate Joe Gale also saw it as a debate-dodging move “especially any debate I’m scheduled to attend because I don’t stick to the script of ‘Democrats bad, Republicans good.’ In truth, both parties are the problem in Harrisburg,” he said.

Unlike his four opponents who put conditions on when they would participate in a debate, candidate Charlie Gerow said he’ll debate any candidate, any time, any place.

“I’m not afraid to debate and if other candidates are, they’re going to have to explain to Republican primary voters how they plan to face Josh Shapiro in the fall,” Gerow said.

Candidate Melissa Hart said she isn’t afraid of tough questions and wouldn’t inquire as to a questioner’s political registration before answering.

“I have enough faith in the good sense of the voters of our commonwealth that I am not about to hide behind the curtains of a debate stage until I am confident that everything will follow a predetermined script,” she said.

Republican candidate Doug Mastriano did not respond to a request for comment.

A Pennsylvania Democratic Party spokeswoman, meanwhile, characterized the debate terms as “cowardly calls for ‘no mean questions.’”

“Pennsylvanians deserve better than extreme and out-of-touch politicians too scared to answer basic questions,” said Marisa Nahem.

“Being unwilling to answer questions from Pennsylvanians should be disqualifying for any candidate fighting to become the next governor,” she said. “Service to this commonwealth includes speaking to your vision and agenda, and it’s clear Lou Barletta, Jake Corman, Bill McSwain, and Dave White are too afraid to own theirs.”

Larry Ceisler, a Philadelphia public relations executive, said in his opinion, the debate conditions that the candidates put forth make them sound like “a group of guys who are willing to put the gloves on but they actually don’t want to fight.”

[…]

Pennsylvania Capital-Star: Four GOP gov. candidates demand Republican moderator, no yes or no q’s for primary debates

By Stephen Caruso, 03/22/22

[…]

But for the five candidates left out, the attempt at gate keeping left a bad taste in their mouth.

“Unlike some other Republican candidates running for governor, I’m not afraid to debate,” gubernatorial hopeful and longtime GOP operative Charlie Gerow said in a statement. “I’ll debate the other candidates any time, any place. If you’re afraid to debate, how do you plan on defeating Josh Shapiro?”

[…]

Democrats also took aim at the letter, saying it showed that Barletta, White, McSwain and Corman were “too afraid” to speak to their vision and agenda for Pennsylvania.

“Being unwilling to answer questions from Pennsylvanians should be disqualifying for any candidate fighting to become the next Governor,” Democratic Party spokesperson Marisa Nahem said in a statement.

Associated Press: 4 GOP candidates for governor set rules to join a debate

By Marc Levy, 03/22/22

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Four Republican candidates for governor in the party’s crowded primary race say they will not join a debate before the primary election unless it is moderated by a Republican who lives in Pennsylvania, eliciting criticism that they are afraid of hard questions.

The four — Lou Barletta, Jake Corman, Bill McSwain and Dave White — issued the joint statement Monday night, eight weeks before the May 17 primary election.

That prompted a response from another Republican candidate, Charlie Gerow, who suggested the four are scared of a challenge and said he is “not afraid to debate anytime, anywhere, any candidate on the ballot.”

The Democratic Party piled on, saying the candidates are afraid of “mean questions.”

[…]

The state Democratic Party lampooned the decision, saying the four candidates are too cowardly to answer tough questions.

It said such questions include whether Joe Biden legitimately won Pennsylvania — a nod to a Republican inquiry into Pennsylvania’s 2020 election inspired by former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud — or whether they would sign a Texas-style law that bans abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy.

[…]

WHYY: What’s behind GOP gov candidates’ ‘bizarre’ new demand to keep debates insular

By Katie Meyer, 03/23/22

When Republican political consultant Samuel Chen first saw a missive from four Republican gubernatorial candidates, laying out their exacting joint criteria for participating in primary election debates, he was a little baffled.

[…]

“How are you going to decide if anyone has spoken negatively about any of the candidates? What constitutes a negative statement?” he asked. “Is it considered a negative statement if you pointed out they had the least grassroots support in the primary? Or are those just facts? They’re just very ambiguous, these rules.”

[…]

“He’s not one that the insiders like,” Chen said of Mastriano’s exclusion. “None of these four like him.”

Mastriano didn’t respond to a request for comment. But Gerow, one of the lagging candidates and a longtime commentator on Pennsylvania politics, said he thinks the conditions set forth by Corman, White, Barletta, and McSwain are “bizarre.”

Part of the point of a debate, Gerow noted, is that candidates prove they will be able to handle unfriendly questions in the general election. Asked whether he’d known about the candidates’ letter or been asked to sign on, he said he hadn’t.

“I would love to know” who wrote it, he said. “Whoever cooked this idea up wasn’t thinking real well. It’s kind of astounding.”

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