Debate or No Debate? Why is That Still a Question?

Republican Chairman Vinnie Vesce signed for the certified letter inviting his candidates to debate the Democrats on 16 September.  Finally, on the 23rd, Frank Catalina comes to a Common Council meeting to complain that Democratic Chairwoman Marina Ciotti should not have contacted Mr. Vesce, but gone straight to him, because it’s his campaign, not Mr. Vesce’s.  Apparently he wants us to swallow his implication that it took an entire week to say yes because he and Mr. Vesce never talk.  I know Frank is not the easiest man to work with, but can the Republican Committee be so dysfunctional that the chair and the mayoral candidate won’t talk to each other?

My bet is that it took a week to craft a response that seems like “yes” but actually contains a poison pill.  Ms. Ciotti made it clear in her letter that the only moderator the Democrats feel issure to be competent and nonpartisan is the League of Women Voters (you can find that letter at the end of the two announcements she posted on the Patch with the debate invitation).  Yet never in the speech Mr. Catalina made at City Hall and never in the letter he handed to Ms. Ciotti that night, did he mention the League.  He proposed that “the people” moderate the debate.  How would that work?  He didn’t go into details (no surprise), but we don’t need to be told.  It would work very poorly.

If Mr. Catalina wants a circus, he can buy a ticket next time Ringling Brothers comes to town.  If he wants a debate, the League of Women Voters is the universally accepted (except by Peekskill Republicans) Cadillac of nonpartisan debate organizers.  Mr. Catalina is proposing that the voters of our city can make do with a clown car.