Lassiter's "No Blink" Debate Strategy Wins Voters' Respect...Road To Victory

(John Lassiter's Focus on Crime, Crime Prevention and Safe Neighborhoods.)






Loss of debate is a shame, but there will be others


Add John Lassiter and Anthony Foxx to the distinguished list of political candidates who debate over debates.

It's a tradition in American politics, with the storyline usually featuring the underdog's demand for more debates and the favored candidate politely declining.

This fight is different, because there is no clear underdog, and both the Republican Lassiter and the Democrat Foxx will appear together on stage close to 30 times this election season. But similar strategic considerations and power-plays are at the heart of this brouhaha.

In case you missed it, the League of Women Voters this week cancelled its planned mayoral debate after Lassiter drew a line in the sand about the format. The League had proposed that each candidate would be allowed six rebuttals. Lassiter said he would agree to three. He wouldn't budge, and the League called the whole thing off.

This is partly about the number of rebuttals. But mostly it's about Lassiter flexing his muscle.

Lassiter wants a small number of rebuttals to minimize the back and forth between the candidates. Foxx is more aggressively drawing distinctions between the two. So the more Lassiter can stay on message and talk to the voters rather than to Foxx, the better for him.

Three rebuttals; four rebuttals. The numbers are arbitrary. The driving factor here was Lassiter's refusal to blink, knowing that the debate falling through might not be such a bad thing for him. Foxx, trailing in the money chase in the most recent campaign reports, arguably needs an hour of free publicity on primetime television worse than Lassiter does.

We see it all as gamesmanship that deprived the voters of seeing Lassiter and Foxx debating important issues in a high-profile televised forum. The League of Women Voters is a respected organization that has contributed greatly to the public's familiarity with candidates over the years. It's a shame their debate won't happen.

Still, one thing is clear: Neither of these candidates is ducking the other on debates. A person in a chicken costume paraded outside Lassiter's Morehead Street headquarters this week after Lassiter's ruckus with the League. That is one lost chicken. Lassiter and Foxx will face off more than two dozen times, including at least twice on live television. Heck, Lincoln and Douglas only had seven debates.

Voters will have every chance to learn about these two fine candidates, and they should make sure they do. On that, there can be no debate.



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Sources: Charlotte Observer, votelassiter.com, Youtube, Google Maps