From: GA.JRG@forsythe.stanford.edu (June Genis)
Subject: The debating game (was Re: Your Vote, Your Choices)
Organization: Stanford University, California, USA
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 07:34:36 GMT

In article <63883@cup.portal.com>,
atfurman@cup.portal.com (A T Furman) writes:
>>       There is a way around this censorship; your phone book and the
>>League of Women Voters.  Look up the political party that interests
>>you, and give them a call.  Ask them for information.  Ask them what
>>they stand for...
>
>And DON'T FORGET TO DEMAND THAT ALTERNATIVE CANDIDATES GET INVITED TO
>DEBATES!  Libertarian candidates have begged in vain to get into LWV
>debates for over ten years.  Millions of Americans are horrified at
>the excesses of the "war on drugs".  A Libertarian would MOP THE FLOOR
>with Republicrats on the prohibition issue.  As things stand now, there
>is a sickening unanimity (check out the views of "liberal Democrat"
>Congressmembers Charles Rangel and Barbara Boxer, for example) on the
>War against the Bill of Rights.

Well, since you brought the subject up... :-)

I've just returned from my southern CA campaign swing and there
were a few developments in the debate area.  (Those of you not from
California may want to tune out here unless you like political war
stories even when they're not relevant to where you live)

I believe I may have mentioned that I sent letters to both Bruce
Herschensohn and Barbara Boxer asking them to debate just before
Bruce started running his "Barbara, I want a campaign of idea;
debate with me" TV ads.  Of course, neither of them bothered to
respond either to the original letter or our follow up phone calls.
Since both of them have their primary opffices in the LA area I
decided to pay a few courtesy calls while I was down there.

In Irvine we managed to convince OCN (Orange County News, owned
by the Register to come along with their camera.  I explained tom
them that I was delighted that Bruce wanted to have a campaign of
ideas and debate the issues which is why I was so sorry he was
having such trouble with his mail and phone service that he
obviously hadn't received my invitation to debate, since I was sure
that given his strong desire for a campaign of ideas, that was the
only possible reason I could think of for my not having heard
anything back from him.  I therefore felt that the least I could do
was to personally bring him (or at least bring to his office)
another copy of my invitation to debate.

And so, after they filmed me saying this outside the building the
OCN crew trained their cameras on myself and small cotterie of
witnesses and up we traipsed to Bruce's office.  The building he's
in is a big square build around a central atrium.  All the offices
have windows facing out to the atrium and the walkway that leads to
the office doors.  Bruce's office was on the far side of the
building from the elevator.  As we started heading there way we saw
a few people look up from their work, glance at us and return to
what they had been doing.  Then the presense of of the TV camera
sunk in.

Suddenly there was a flurry of activity to be seen with people
running every which way.  As we opened the door into the
receptionist's office I wondered where they'd all scurried to. Then
I began to see the heads poking out from the back corridor.  I admit
that I almost felt sorry for the poor receptionist.  She was on the
phone as we arrived as looked up to see me in front of her, letter
in hand, a camera zeroing in at her from the side accompanied by
someone thrusting a microphone in her general direction and a
cluster of variously dressed people hovering in the doorway.

She concluded her call as gracefully as she could, listened politely
while I gave my little spiel again and ssaid that she would see that
Bruce got the letter.  I thanked her and we all trooped out and back
to the elevators and I wisked off to my next appointment.

Fortunately, Libertarians are notoriously late or I might not have
heard the final installment of this story.  One straggler was just
asking the OCN crew as they packed up where everyone was when
someone came dashing down from Herschensohn's office shouting that
they had a response from Bruce and wanted to get it on the film
record as well.  That response was that Bruce agreed to debate with
me if I could get Barbara to join is.  Now this could reasonably be
contrued as a major coup for a third party candidate (and you'd
better believe that's the press spin we were giving it :-) until you
realizze that Barbara has been giving Bruce as well as myself the
royal brush off as far as debates go (none are scheduled at this
point).  In this light Bruce's move becomes not concession but
brilliant tactics as I am now forced to join the battle to get
Barbara to debate with him as well.

Never one to to shun an overwhelming challenge I decided to bite.
We'd been hemming and hawing about whether or not to drop by
Barbara's place as an equal time gesture anyway and now we had a
good excuse.  Unforntunately, with only a couple of hours to pull
the whole thing together we weren't able to find a TV crew that
wanted to go with us this time.  But we went anyway and delivered
the duplicate of the press release to a member of her press staff.
In doing so, I quoted from the press release which we'd already sent
out saying that I thought it was going to look rather bad for
Barbara if a man was willing to give another woman  a chance to be
heard but she wasn't.

The whole exchange was quite courteous and polite (I had explained
my arrival to the receptionist as a courtesy call since we were in
the area).  We shook hands and my campaign manager and I headed back
to the elevator.  However, just was we disappeared around the bend
in the hallway we were treated to a tremendous peal of laughter
emanating from Boxer headquarters.  And therein her staff made a
very serious mistake because as everyone knows "he who laughs last,
laughs best", and as anyone who knows me knows, when I decide to get
something done, I do.

In this case I have decided that I will be in a debate with both
Barbara Boxer and Bruce Herschensohn or Barbara will have a lot of
explaining to do about why she is trying to avoid a serious
challenger who has been openly acknowledged by her Republican
opponent.

Which brings me to a request.  If you are a Boxer supporter but
believe that a campaign should be won by an honest competition among
all serious contenders based on the issues, I would appreciate your
contacting her office (sorry, I left the phone number in the car
which my manager is driving back while I flew home but it's at 7060
Hollywood Blvd in LA) and tell her that you think she should debate
with Bruce and me.  Please ask others you know to do the same.  I
would like for her to get a *lot* of calls on this.

Of course, I have a few other things in mind as well :-)

/June