BY Kathy Barks Hoffman
AP Political Writer
LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- Michigan's two gubernatorial candidates began Monday with angry words over whether to hold debates but ended it by cordially answering questions at a town hall meeting and agreeing to have coffee together.
It still remained unclear whether there will ever be a formal debate between Republican Rick Snyder and Democrat Virg Bernero.
The congenial exchange between Snyder and Bernero Monday evening at the Hawthorne Valley Country Club came at the end of a daylong clash over debates.
Snyder told WJR radio host Paul W. Smith Monday morning that he was done negotiating over debates since Bernero didn't accept his Friday offer to do three. He dismissed debates as largely "sound bites and bickering."
Bernero called a news conference in Lansing later that morning to criticize Snyder's decision.
"He seems to want the job without going through the job interview," Bernero said. "This is not an affront to me as much as it's a slap in the face to voters."
But when Bernero showed up at the town hall meeting, Snyder welcomed him into the country club. He accepted the letter Bernero was bearing suggesting the two sit down alone and work out a mutual debate schedule.
"I'm happy to have coffee, and we can talk about a lot of things," Snyder said, although he didn't say he'd agree to debates.
Speaking to more than 100 people at the town hall meeting, Snyder gave a fiestier-than-usual presentation of his campaign stump speech. He then turned the stage over to Bernero before the two men took questions from the audience. Each answered every question, and neither took potshots at the other.
Snyder wants the debates to be held before absentee ballots go out later this month. He wasn't amused Friday when Bernero's campaign released the details of Snyder's debate offer while complaining about restrictions Snyder wanted.
"They sent out a press release instead of calling us to say this is what they're going to do," Snyder said. "It's too bad they didn't accept, because I was ready to go."
Snyder, who calls himself "one tough nerd" in his ads and campaign literature, skipped two out of three gubernatorial debates sponsored this spring and summer by the Michigan Republican Party.
The wealthy Ann Arbor businessman spent $2.3 million running ads during the primary election and pumped $6 million of his own money into his campaign. Although the more than 50 town hall meetings he has held have been open to the public, a large share of the audience consists of Snyder supporters who heard about the meetings from the campaign.
Bernero said residents should get a chance to see both opponents together answering tough questions from the media about how they would revive Michigan's economy and chart a better path for the future.
"The voters deserve to hear our unscripted answers," Bernero said. "He can't just buy his way into the governor's office."
With his double-digit lead in the polls, Snyder has more to lose than gain from going one-on-one with the feisty Lansing mayor. Just ask Republican Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, who suffered through an agonizing 10-second pause after she apparently lost her line of thought during a debate earlier this month.
But ducking debates can backfire.
"In high-visibility campaigns across the country, debating is an expectation," said Erika King, a political science professor at Grand Valley State University who thinks both sides will ultimately agree to one face-to-face matchup. Skipping debates "would get a lot of negative publicity" for Snyder, she said.
Bernero at one point suggested eight debates, a common tactic for candidates lagging their opponents.
The last gubernatorial race in which there were no debates was in 1998, when two-term Republican Gov. John Engler refused to debate Democrat Geoffrey Fieger after the Southfield trial attorney made disparaging comments about Engler and his family.
Eight years earlier, when he'd been a little-known state senator challenging two-term Democratic Gov. James Blanchard, Engler asked for eight debates.
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Associated Press Writer Jeff Karoub in Westland, Mich., contributed to this story.
Published: Wed, Sep 15, 2010
