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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Arial><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I have been trying to follow the fracas concerning the MCA
so called debates. As I understand it, the MCA, an organization of like
minded people with a stated goal of endorsing candidates for office, tried to
get a meeting with the specific opposing candidates and the organization.
Such a meeting would then allow the MCA to choose a candidate to endorse.
The meeting would be purposely set up to allow the members to ask specific
questions of the opposing candidates. This is not a debate!</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Arial><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Arial><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Apparently, the MCA got agreements from individual
candidates to appear, knowing the proposed format. The local branch of the
Republican Party objected to the format, calling the MCA partisan. The Party
then tried to get the publisher of the local paper to be the organizer of such
meetings, calling said publisher a non-partisan entity. Say what???
Who do they think their kidding??</span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Arial><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>We have yet to see a real debate. What we have seen is
carefully controlled campaigning within a limited setting. The Republican
Party can certainly decline the meeting set up by the MCA, but to do so because
the MCA is partisan, and then suggesting their own partisan meeting, reflects the
overwhelmingly narrow view that has brought about a deeply divided country.</span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Arial><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>If </span></font><font face=Arial><span style='font-family:
Arial'>Tom</span></font><font face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'> </span></font><font
face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'>Trail</span></font><font
face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'> does not want to submit to the
questions of a group like MCA then he should just say so. The MCA will
then be free to endorse his opponent, if they so wish. The same can be
said with the other candidates. For the Republican Party to intervene and
prohibit such a meeting is to pretend that the views of the members of the MCA
do not count. It is, in effect, denying a portion of this community access
to the political process at the most basic level. Shame on you!!!</span></font></p>
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font-family:Arial'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Arial><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>John</span></font></p>
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