Those rare times when candidates decline to speak
Not every candidate agrees to meet with The Columbian’s editorial board, and not every candidate agrees to be interviewed by David Madore’s COUV.com. This was an issue last year when Madore was a donor and continues to be an issue now that he’s a candidate.
Madore, a Republican, is one of three people challenging Republican Marc Boldt, chairman of the Board of Clark County Commissioners. Former Vancouver City Councilor Pat Campbell, an independent, and newcomer Roman Battan, a Democrat, both declined Madore’s invitation to be part of a group interview, with questions asked by Victoria Taft.
Taft hosts a show on a Portland station, KPAM 860, which describes itself as news and right-wing talk radio.
Boldt accepted, and is scheduled to be interviewed this week.
Here’s Campbell’s response to Madore:
David,
I don’t believe this is an appropriate venue.
1) You control COUV.COM and this would be like being interviewed by the Columbian when Scott Campbell would be running for office.
2) Victoria Taft is a comedian/entertainer not a journalist.
No thanks,
Pat
Campbell later clarified that he meant Taft is a comedian/entertainer “like in a circus.”
Here’s Madore’s invite. (He mentions the shows will be aired on cable, but not which channel. Stephanie Anderson from Clark-Vancouver Television said CVTV, which is publicly funded, declined Madore’s offer to do a partnership. CVTV did ask me to interview all nine candidates for two commissioner positions, which I finished last week. Also, The Columbian will start publishing stories about the races closer to when ballots are mailed on July 18.)
From: David.M@usdigital.com
To: pat777campbell@msn.com; David@davidmadore.com; dawn.boldt@gmail.com; roman@ElectRomanBattan.com
Subject: COUV Interview Invitation
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 17:45:14 +0000
<p>COUV.com invites you to join us for a video interview hosted by Victoria Taft. The plan is for each group of candidates running in each race to sit side by side and share their views one at a time in response to Victoria’s questions. Each candidate will also be given a few minutes at the end to share whatever they like.
To help us draw from your insight, we also invite you to optionally email any questions that you suggest we ask for your race. We will consider them when compiling the relevant questions for the interview.
Our goal is to get these interviews wrapped as soon as possible beginning next week (June 25) and have them posted before ballots get mailed mid-July. The videos are to be uncut, will likely also air live, and be shared on cable TV.
Please communicate with Linda Carlson at 360-397-9997 or linda.c@usdigital.com for scheduling. Please share all open windows of time you are available to participate. Also, please let us know via email to Linda ASAP if you accept or decline our invitation. We understand that some candidates might not be able to arrange a schedule that works for everyone. In that case, the show must go on and we will go with those that can participate. If Victoria Taft cannot fit all interviews into her schedule, we will provide another appropriate interviewer in those cases.
You can see candidate interviews from the last election at: http://couv.com/issues/elections.
We look forward to helping our community learn more about their candidates to make more informed choices.
David Madore
DMadore@COUV.COM
COUV.COM
1400 NE 136th Ave.
Vancouver, WA 98684
360.601.3056
