These events shouldn’t be a scheduling kerfuffle, especially at the congressional level. It’s a simple process. Two candidates agree to have a debate, a third supposedly nonpartisan organization sponsors the event, and the two sides duke it out—peacefully. Voters get to hear two plans for governing which leads to Election Day to decide who persuaded whom the best. In Virginia’s seventh congressional district, the debates have gone off the rails, and both sides have pulled out of these events. Democratic incumbent Rep. Abigail Spanberger wanted to debate her Republican opponent, Yesli Vega, in Fredericksburg last month. Vega declined. Spanberger decided to run away from a planned October 21 debate reportedly over refusing to answer questions about Del. Elizabeth Guzman’s proposed changes to the state’s child abuse laws.
Yet, Spanberger was also not pleased with the choice of moderator, who happens to be our own Larry O’Connor, smearing him as a lying right-wing host who has hurled mountains of vitriol against Democrats. O’Connor was to co-moderate it with PBS’s Lisa Desjardins—putting to rest the notion that the Virginia Democrat would be unfairly disadvantaged at this venue.
O’Connor would like to know who the hell set this whole thing up because someone didn’t get the memo. Either Spanberger approved O’Connor as a debate moderator and is now fleeing for the hills since the climate for Democrats in 2022 is downright atrocious, or she was never informed of the selection by the Virginia League of Women Voters from the outset:
The debate organizers confirmed me as a co-moderator. I have emails. It defies credulity that @RepSpanberger's team did not approve this before the debate committee had confirmed with me.
— Larry O'Connor (@LarryOConnor) October 16, 2022
Instead of slandering me, perhaps the congresswoman should explain all of this confusion. https://t.co/0E0Iv5qObH
Furthermore.. this has been a news item since midday Friday and yet it's amazing than not one reporter for a mainstream newspaper (like the Washington Post which covers this race for the people of Northern Virginia) or any cable network has reached out to me for details.
— Larry O'Connor (@LarryOConnor) October 16, 2022
It's almost like reporters find out that I'm a radio talk show host and they just accept the congresswoman promise that I am unworthy of being on a debate stage as a moderator.
— Larry O'Connor (@LarryOConnor) October 16, 2022
It seems to be newsworthy that the debate organizers confirmed me before @RepSpanberger backed out.
Either @RepSpanberger is going back on her word after her team have given the go-ahead for this debate with me as a moderator, or the debate organizers confirmed me without having the congresswoman's approval.
— Larry O'Connor (@LarryOConnor) October 16, 2022
Either way, she should be forced to respond on the record, right?
If Spanberger thinks she’s going down, she might as well go out in a blaze of glory and go full-on human wave charge a la the Japanese on Okinawa. Go out with a bang and debate Vega. While some Republicans averted debates this cycle, it’s mostly been a virus that’s infected members of the Democratic Party.