Two birds, meet one stone.
Rick Perry, who saw his fortunes turn after the last closely-watched televised presidential debate in Florida, was among the first candidates to bail on a future Sunshine State debate that was scheduled to come just days before the Florida primary. Not only is Perry saving himself some potential embarrassment by deciding to boycott the Univision-sponsored debate, he’s also throwing some support behind Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) with the move, giving him a chance to say in the good graces of one of the GOP’s brightest stars.
All-in-all, a smooth move by Team Perry.
The backstory is slightly complicated, involving allegations that Unvision tried to bargain with Rubio in advance of story critical of a member of his extended family the network planned to air. Here’s a quick summary from the Miami Herald:
The controversy revolves around a Miami Herald story on Sunday in which staffers from Rubio’s office and the network said that Lee offered to soften or kill a story about a decades-old drug bust of Rubio’s brother-in-law if the Republican senator sat down for an interview — where he’d likely be asked to defend his conservative position on immigration.
[Univision News president Issac] Lee and Univision officials…last week denied the reports about a quid-pro-quo offer to Rubio.
Republicans in Florida were outraged, and called on the presidential candidates to boycott the proposed Univision debate in retaliation. (They also called for Lee’s firing.)
On Tuesday, Perry and Jon Huntsman obliged the state GOP, and declined to attend the debate, which was expected to come just days before Florida’s Jan. 31 primary.
“Governor Perry will not consider participating in the January 29, 2012, Univision debate until your network addresses this ethical breach and takes action to correct it,” Perry adviser Ray Sullivan told the network, according to the Herald. Team Perry pointed out that “we will have ample opportunity to engage with Spanish-speaking Americans” thanks to a debate on Univision rival Telemundo scheduled for the same week in January.
