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Hawaii News Now deserves kudos for hosting debates that try to energize local elections, but made a couple of bad journalistic calls in the latest round by shutting out potentially the most interesting GOP candidate for governor and again letting U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard run and hide to deny opponents a chance to be heard.
HNN hosted a GOP gubernatorial debate between John Carroll, a perennial big loser in top races who hasn’t been elected to anything since the 1970s, and state Rep. Andria Tupola, a music teacher by trade.
Left out was the third Republican candidate, Ray L’Heureux, a retired Marine major who piloted Marine 1 under four presidents, served as Hawaii assistant schools superintendent in charge of facilities and now heads the Education Institute of Hawaii.
He has substantial and relevant experience for the office, and voters crying for fresh voices in local elections would have benefited from hearing his views.
HNN’s excuse that it invited only the top two candidates in a poll was dubious, given the campaign had barely started when the poll was taken.
Having three candidates on stage is hardly unmanageable; HNN hosted other debates featuring six Democrats running in the 1st Congressional District and five Democrats battling for lieutenant governor.
We need more choices in elections, not fewer, and there was no defensible
rationale for excluding L’Heureux.
In the 2nd Congressional District, HNN declined to hold a debate because Gabbard, the incumbent, refused to participate, the second election in a row she’s pulled the stunt.
Gabbard, who famously bashed Hillary Clinton in 2016 for not giving Bernie Sanders enough debates, saying debates hold politicians “accountable for the positions that they’re taking,” has every right to be a hypocrite and duck her own debates.
But HNN and other news media shouldn’t give her the right to effectively silence opponents by backing out, notwithstanding her bazillions in campaign funds and high profile in the polls.
Gabbard’s main Democratic opponent, Sherry Alu Campagna, an environmental activist, business owner and an organizer of the national Women’s March, is running a vigorous campaign with many volunteers and significant endorsements, including the state teachers union.
There’s no reason HNN couldn’t have aired a debate between Campagna and the third Democratic candidate, Tony Austin, a military veteran, business owner and party activist.
Debate sponsors have been known to represent missing candidates in such debates with empty chairs; a sponsor on the mainland once put a chicken in the empty chair.
Gabbard not only avoids debates but is unusually inaccessible to local media seeking to ask tough questions about issues such as her controversial trip to Syria last year to prop up murderous dictator Bashar al-Assad.
As Gabbard said herself, debates should be about accountability and respecting voter choice, not money and star power.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
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