Over the weekend I received an update from Judie Soderlund of the Fiorina for U.S. Senate campaign regarding the status of potential debates with incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer…

From Julie…

I wanted to provide you with a real time update with regard to e debates in the Senate race.

Today, we learned that the Boxer campaign, despite the fact that there is a meeting scheduled Monday at 2pm to discuss the Boxer campaign’s either acceptance or counterproposal to our June 23 proposal of a series of seven debates, has decided not to provide any feedback to us. Instead they have but attempted to “blow up” negotiations after simple and repeated requests by our campaign for a counter-proposal in an effort to make Monday’s negotiations just that: negotiations toward some actual debates, not endless meetings and email exchanges that seem to be favored by Barbara Boxer and her team. Clearly there is one reason for this: Boxer isn’t really interested in debating Carly. We, on the other hand, are ready for a minimum of the seven debates already proposed by our campaign and open to a broader discussion about more.

You don’t have to take my word for it, below is the most recent email exchange between the negotiators. In addition, here is a quick reference as to timeline regarding debate negotiations to date:

• June 8 – Boxer campaign sends an email to us asking for debates.
• June 9 – We accept this invitation, state a desire to have many debates and appoint Ken Khachigian and Beth Miller as our debate negotiators.
• June 10 – Boxer campaign responds appointing Dan Newman and Ace Smith as its negotiators. The Boxer campaign states that Mr. Newman will be in touch regarding debate negotiations.
• June 15 – Five days go by with no contact from Mr. Newman. Beth Miller sends an email to Mr. Newman and Mr. Smith requesting a meeting to begin negotiations.
• June 16 – A date, time and place is set for June 23rd for the first meeting in San Francisco.
• June 23 –  The first debate negotiation meeting is held in San Francisco. Carly proposes a minimum of seven debates, two nationally televised and five in media markets across the state. The Boxer campaign proposes nothing specific, promises to get back to us with their counterproposal after checking the Senator’s busy schedule.
• June 30 – The Boxer campaign requests a meeting for July 8. That date did not work for Beth and Ken due to travel schedules.
• July 1 – The next day, Beth and Ken propose a meeting for July 12 and ask for a proposal ahead of that meeting to ensure that the negotiations are productive and lead to agreement on debate times, places and formats.
• July 2 – July 12th at 2pm is agreed to for the next meeting. Beth and Ken again ask for the Boxer counterproposal ahead of the meeting to ensure that it is a productive one.
• July 9 – After hearing no response from the Boxer campaign regarding their counterproposal, Beth again requests one and says that if we do not receive one, there isn’t a purpose in holding Monday’s meeting. The Boxer campaign accuses the Fiorina campaign of breaking off negotiations, when in fact the ball is in their court to present a counterproposal followed by a meeting to begin real negotiations.

To be clear, Carly has proposed debates, seven real debates, between her and Barbara Boxer as a minimum for California voters to hear from both candidates. The Boxer campaign has yet to commit to or present a proposal for one concrete debate. If the Boxer campaign delivers on its promise to present us with a debate counter-proposal, we are more than happy to move forward with a meeting to come to mutual agreement on specifics. However, as far as we are concerned we are ready to accept all the debate requests in our inbox and we are not interested in waiting around while the Boxer and her campaign play games and tries to dodge.

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 12th, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.