Guy Fogle Refuses To Participate In Live Stream Internet Colloquy / Debate –With David Esrati and Joe Roberts

I was afraid that the whole internet debate idea might fizzle out when Guy Fogle failed to respond to my recent e-mail messages.  I was afraid that his silence meant that he might not support the idea.  David Esrati made it clear that he would not participate in the internet debate event, unless all three candidates were involved.  Joe Roberts was all for the event. So, if we we to have any kind of event at all, it all depended on Guy.

I finally heard from Guy this morning and he told me that on Monday evening he and his supporters would be going door to door. He said that he was having a lot of success in his face to face encounters with voters, and that he had decided to not change his plans for Monday. He said he would not be available to participate in an on-line debate. I replied that Esrati had suggested a 12:00 noon meeting time — in order to attract downtown workers and students who might be on their lunch hour — and an earlier meeting would still give him the evening free.  But Guy reminded me that he needed to work at his job and that he didn’t get off work until, I think he said, 4:30 PM.

It was clear from the beginning of the conversation that Fogle’s mind was made up:  he would not participate. But I made an attempt, anyway, to help him see that we should not discard such a great opportunity, and that his time would be better spent via developing an internet following, rather than knocking on a relatively few number of doors.

I pointed out that the permission to use the auditorium in Sinclair College’s Conference Center is huge, that we were very fortunate, that we were getting a much bigger stage than I had actually hoped for.  I said if we could pull off such a program, it would show that as a Party we are forward looking — interested in creating community via the internet, interested in effectively engaging the internet community.

I tried to appeal to Fogle that we should work together to make the event successful, so, whoever wins the nomination, his campaign would start off with a boost. I said we would have the opportunity to generate a whole new e-mail list — of individuals in the internet community — and a chance to raise money for a You-tube project.

But, Guy had made up his mind.

I’m surprised at Guy Fogle’s refusal. It’s an interesting development in the campaign, for anyone paying attention. It hadn’t occurred to me, until the last few days, as I was scurrying to try to put this event together, that such an outcome was even was a possibility.  The event came together this morning when the conference center sales manager for Sinclair, Kym Yahn, indicated to me that she had the green light and that we could have use of the conference auditorium on Monday, July 12 — we simply needed to decide on the time.  Wow. It was a big breakthrough.  An hour later, I heard from Guy.