McALLEN – Faced with the prospect of having no debate at all in the Rio Grande Valley, the Wendy Davis campaign on Monday agreed to a final condition laid out by the Greg Abbott campaign to hold a debate without a live audience.
“We are interested in debating Gen. Abbott anytime, anywhere,” Davis campaign manager Chris Turner said. “And while it’s unfortunate that the voters in the Rio Grande Valley will be denied the opportunity to witness this historic event in person, we believe strongly enough in the merits of the debate that we will agree to the conditions.”
From the start, the Abbott campaign said it would be inflexible about certain components of a Valley debate – one of those being no live audience.
Advisers to Abbott have said they are interested in having a deep dialogue between the two candidates to show the very clear differences that they have regarding public policy.
Having such a discussion in front of a live audience is fraught with too much possibility for distraction and interruption, Abbott advisers said.
The two campaigns reached an impasse on July 10 during negotiations involving the Valley debate that were being held with its three media sponsors: The Monitor, KGBT-TV Action 4 News and KTLM Telemundo 40.
Both campaigns and the media sponsors negotiated for more than two hours and reached agreement on virtually every component of the event, scheduled for Sept. 19. This included the venue, which will be the Edinburg Conference Center at Renaissance.
The groups also were able to renegotiate a starting time for the debate to 6 p.m. instead of the originally proposed 7 p.m., a concession to the difficulty the two television stations would have interrupting prime time broadcasting during a new fall season.
Yet despite the media partners and the Davis campaign pushing for a live audience for the historic event, the Abbott campaign held firm that they did not want a live audience.
Talks broke off while the two campaigns continued the dialogue through The Monitor.
Finally, the Davis camp agreed on Monday announcing that it would participate in the debate, although it called the exclusion of a live audience unfortunate.
For those voters who are interested in watching the debate in proximity to the actual event, John R. Garza, director of the Edinburg Conference Center at Renaissance, said he would broadcast the debate live on giant screens in the facility’s auditorium.
The debate itself would be held in a banquet hall opposite the auditorium.
