A.G. Gancarski
At this writing, the Alvin Brown campaign has no plans to reverse course and appear with Lenny Curry in tonight’s “debate” on Action News Jax. The word debate is in quotes, given that Curry will be alone on the stage, with what amounts to an hour when he can express his vision for Jacksonville without fear of reprisal or interruption.
Brown’s choice not to debate is a strategy that is fraught with risk. For one thing, Curry is up in the most recent polling, a survey of 1,026 voters conducted on Tuesday by St. Pete Polls, a poll that is yet another data point in a trend that has to be worrisome for the incumbent.
Incumbents who are ahead in the polls typically can get away with not debating. It’s the Mayweather/Pacquaio strategy. Dodge punches, play defense, and win on points. That works great in theory, but when you can see the scorecard and it’s not looking like victory is a sure thing, you have to start throwing haymakers. You can’t do that if you decide to sit out Round 10 of a 12 round fight though.
Over the course of this campaign, there has been a general reluctance from the Brown campaign to even have its candidate in the same room with Lenny Curry. At the Beaches Watch forum, Brown’s team didn’t want their candidate to share a stage with Curry. The same held true at the Visit Jacksonville forum, which started out being proposed by organizers as a debate, but was turned into a split session.
Yes, there are two debates between the candidates next week. The next one is on First Coast News on Monday evening. But what this uncontested appearance will allow Lenny Curry to do is spend an hour articulating a critique of the Brown Administration that he has honed over the last year, without any counterargument. It is a risky strategy by the mayor.
The Brown campaign has no plans, at this writing, to reverse course and appear on the Action News debate. They claimed, weeks ago, that debates were just venues where Curry could pull “partisan tricks.” Their bet is that without the mayor on set, viewership will be limited. It remains to be seen if that is the wisest possible move.
