Why is Sen. Mark Warner dodging debates?
by Editorial Board · The Washington TimesOPINION:
Forget “Where’s Waldo?” The better question might well be “Where’s Warner?”
There is one place we know Sen. Mark R. Warner, Virginia Democrat, is not: behind a candidate’s debate lectern on a TV soundstage.
Mr. Warner, seeking reelection to a fourth six-year term, has already caused two debates to be canceled, supposedly because they conflicted with his Senate schedule.
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His Republican challenger, Bert Mizusawa, is seeking to unseat Mr. Warner. When Mr. Warner first ran, unsuccessfully, for the Senate in 1996, he claimed he did not want to be a career politician and that, if elected, he would serve only two terms. He won on his second try in 2008.
Yet that was then, and this is now. Whether Mr. Warner actually meant it at the time became a moot point in 2020 when he ran for and won a third term.
The Stafford County Republican Committee, writing on Facebook on Sept. 23, chided Mr. Warner for ducking debates with Mr. Mizusawa, a retired Army major general.
“After failing to participate in Virginia’s oldest and widely broadcast political debate series held by the AARP, Mark Warner announced [in early September] that he would also be passing on another traditional election debate, the one sponsored by Virginia’s League of Women Voters. We’re seeing Democratic candidates sitting out debates across Virginia and across our great nation. … The people deserve better!”
Virginia voters do indeed deserve better, and the reference to a pattern of Democrats avoiding debates recalls how, at about this same time last year, then-state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi likewise refused to debate her Republican challenger for lieutenant governor, John Reid.
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On Monday night, Rep. Don Beyer, Virginia Democrat, was a no-show at a debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters against his Republican challenger, Tony Sabio, and a pair of third-party candidates. Mr. Beyer likely figured he could skip the debate with impunity, given the dark-blue hue of Virginia’s 8th Congressional District in suburban Washington.
Nor apparently is this phenomenon limited to Virginia. In Florida, David Jolly is not being a “jolly good fellow” politically. The Republican turned Democratic gubernatorial nominee there announced Sept. 20 that he would not debate his Republican opponent, Rep. Byron Donalds.
“We can understand why Jolly wouldn’t want to get up and defend his crazy liberal agenda in a debate,” Mr. Donalds’ campaign responded. “It’s because his campaign is too far left and too expensive for Florida.”
Back in Virginia, it is not as if Mr. Warner — who still has full control of his faculties — has to fear the sort of onstage mental meltdown that sank President Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign.
Some have suggested that Democratic candidates are ducking debates because they fear being asked whether they support the far-left Democratic Socialists of America platform backed by their party’s rising phalanx of radical nominees, such as Senate hopefuls Angie Nixon in Florida and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, and House hopefuls Darializa Avila Chevalier of New York City and Melat Kiros of Denver.
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By avoiding debates and sticking to friendly, partisan audiences at campaign rallies, supposedly “mainstream” Democratic candidates such as Mr. Warner can also avoid angering increasingly leftist party loyalists, knowing that they will not be asked about divisive and deeply unpopular subjects, such as gender-confused males invading girls’ and women’s interscholastic sports.
Yet as of Friday, it will be more difficult for Mr. Warner to dodge debating, because that is when the Senate is scheduled to adjourn for a full month ahead of the Nov. 3 elections. He will no longer be able to hide behind his Senate schedule to avoid defending his far-left voting record.
Virginia voters deserve to hear from both candidates, side by side, so they can compare and contrast their policy positions and ideas. They definitely should not reward evasive candidates who hide behind weak excuses to avoid debating.
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