Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez told environmental activists that it would be “impractical” for the party to host a primary debate on climate change, according to a Sunday Tampa Bay Times report.
On Saturday, the activists confronted Perez at a gala in Orlando, Florida, and asked him about the party denying 2020 Democratic candidate and Washington governor Jay Inslee’s request to hold a debate for the candidates to discuss solutions to global warming.
Perez told them that “once you have one single issue debate, then every debate leads to become a single issue debate in order to address the concerns.”
“We will have issue areas in debates, including but not limited to climate, but it’s just not practical for us to have one debate on democracy reform, one debate on voting,” the chairman said. “And as someone who worked for Barack Obama, the most remarkable thing about him was his tenacity to multitask, and a president must be able to multitask.”
Inslee, who’s made climate change a cornerstone of his campaign, expressed disappointment on Wednesday when he announced the DNC’s decision.
“The DNC is silencing the voices of Democratic activists, many of our progressive partner organizations, and nearly half of the Democratic presidential field who want to debate the existential crisis of our time,” Inslee said. “The climate crisis merits a full discussion of our plans, not a short exchange of talking points.”
This would be like the Washingtoon debate about how much we support Social Security that ended with “I would advocate the use of nuclear weapons against anyone who ever proposed touching one cent of Social Security.”
I’m not a big fan of single issue debates -as important as climate change is -but if we’re going to do that, I propose we start with the Mueller Report and Impeachment. Perhaps that will jumpstart the public into reading it and the House to act on it.
Dear Gov Inslee
apparently, all you need to do is call it a “candidate forum”, and you can hold the “full discussion of our plans” to your hearts content. Just don’t call it a debate, and you’ll be fine…
But please explain to us how 10 people standing at podiums for 90 minutes would yield a “full discussion” rather than “a short exchange of talking points”?
In other words, please stop trying to cause divisions within the Democratic party, governor. Your desperation for attention is obvious, and unappealling.
None of the debates should be limited to a single subject.
And the candidates wouldn’t stay on one subject if held at gunpoint—and they shouldn’t because so much of what is out there is interconnected.
Lying, grifting, toilet tweeting, more lying, Adderall, golfing, still more lying, paying hush money, wandering the Rose Garden naked…
Trump’s got multitasking totally covered.