 Green Party nominee Rich Whitney will be alongside Quinn and Brady
in a debate that will be broadcast from a TV station at Southern
Illinois University on Thursday night.But Whitney said the
Illinois public is losing out from his exclusion from the other
three debates.
"This is supposed to be about the voters. How can voters make the
best choice as to who the best candidate is in the race unless
they're given a fair opportunity to hear the perspectives of all the
candidates put to the test of debate?" he said.
Whitney said he would like all candidates, including Libertarian
Party candidate Lex Green and independent candidate Scott Lee Cohen,
to take part in the debates.
But Whitney was quick to add that he has a stronger claim for
being included because of his performance in the 2006 gubernatorial
election, when he won more than 10 percent of the popular vote.
Jan Czarnik, executive director of the League of Women Voters of
Illinois, disagrees that Whitney should be automatically included in
the debate. The organization is sponsoring one of the gubernatorial
debates and determined that Quinn and Brady were the only candidates
to gain enough public support.
According to the league's guidelines, a candidate had to get 10
percent of support in an independent, nonpartisan poll featuring all
gubernatorial candidates no sooner than 30 days before the election
and at least five days before the election.
The only poll that would fit into the guidelines under that
definition would be a poll conducted by Suffolk University, a
private institution in Boston, Mass. According to that poll, Whitney
received 3 percent support from those polled.
Czarnik said the threshold helped the organization determine the
candidates with the most public support, which led debate organizers
to invite Brady and Quinn.
"One of these candidates is going to be the next governor of
Illinois. And the purpose of these debates is to compare and
contrast the positions and the beliefs and the qualifications among
the candidates who are seriously in contention," she said.
Elmhurst College in suburban Chicago is also sponsoring one of
the remaining gubernatorial debates.
Desiree Chen, a spokeswoman for the college, said the college
adhered to a similar threshold to the one the League of Women Voters
used for determining candidates for the debate.
[to top of second column] |
She noted the university had invited all five gubernatorial
candidates to the campus to speak with students.
"Rich Whitney is the only one who has turned us down. We were
told by his campaign that he was too busy. So I don't quite
understand... We gave him the opportunity to come and speak with our
students and meet with our classes and he turned us down," she said.
Brady visited the campus in September, while the university is
still in discussion about campus visits with the campaigns of Quinn,
Cohen and Green.
Whitney said he and his supporters will not back down from the
debate snubs. His campaign has already produced a video calling for
debate sponsors to allow his participation in the debates.
"And if pressure and persuasion doesn't work, we will make them
pay a political price by conducting street protests during any
illegitimate debates that go on without including me," he said.
"This is part of our larger fight to get our message out and we will
win that struggle, and we're still very much in the fight to win
this election."
A list of gubernatorial debates remaining (debate start times are
approximate):
-
Thursday, Oct. 14,
8 p.m., at WSIU studios with state Sen. Bill Brady, Gov. Pat
Quinn and Rich Whitney
-
Sunday, Oct. 17, 8
p.m., at Elmhurst College with state Sen. Bill Brady and Gov.
Pat Quinn
-
Wednesday, Oct.
20, 7 p.m., at WLS-TV (ABC7 Chicago) studios in Chicago with
state Sen. Bill Brady and Gov. Pat Quinn
-
Thursday, Oct. 28, 7 p.m. at City Club
of Chicago with state Sen. Bill Brady and Gov. Pat Quinn
[Illinois
Statehouse News; By KEVIN LEE]
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