Ben Cline, who just last week said his Democratic opponent, Beth Macy, “wanted the headline ‘debate me’ more than she wanted the night itself,” apparently wanted the headline “she didn’t show” more than he wanted the debate itself.
This is our conclusion today after being informed by the organizer of a debate that was to be co-hosted by Mountain Gateway Community College and the Alleghany Highland Chamber of Commerce is now off, because Cline, the MAGA Republican incumbent congressman in the Sixth District, never responded.
From the archives
- Coverage of the Sixth District congressional race: click here.
The college and the chamber of commerce had extended invitations to Macy and Cline earlier this month for an Oct. 14 Community Conversation to be held at the Historic Masonic Theatre in Clifton Forge.
Macy committed last week, but organizers “never heard from Congressman Cline,” per a release that went out on Monday.
“We’d hoped to have both candidates participating in a community conversation that evening,” event organizer Joan Vannorsdall said in the release. “Regrettably, candidate Ben Cline didn’t respond to our invitation.”
This is quite the messy egg on the face for Cline, whose campaign sent an email to supporters on Sept. 22 to reinforce his claim that Macy had skipped out on three “debates” that his campaign had committed to, though the final of those, to be hosted by the Harrisonburg Rotary Club on Oct. 5, was actually canceled by the Rotary Club.
The Rotarians in The Friendly City cited their internal “Four-Way Test,” which they say includes “asking whether what we do will build goodwill and better friendships,” and said their board determined that “cancelling the forum is the most responsible way to honor those principles and preserve the Club’s nonpartisan role in our community.”
Anyway.
The first of the “debates” was a forum held by a MAGA business group in Frederick County; the second was a quick lunch event with the Salem Rotary Club that Cline’s folks didn’t run by Macy’s schedulers.
Cline was quoted in the campaign email saying that Macy “asked for the fight and then left the chair empty. I will not.”
Except now, he is.
You know, leaving the chair empty.
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Chris Graham
