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Taylor Absent From Governor Debate

Posted on: Friday, 16 June 2006, 12:00 CDT

By Matt Barnwell, The Macon Telegraph, Ga.

Jun. 16--SAVANNAH -- Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor was a no-show Thursday morning at a debate here among Democratic candidates for governor.

The Georgia Press Association had scheduled the debate at its annual convention and said Taylor, who is battling Secretary of State Cathy Cox for their party's nomination, had been expected to attend.

It would have been the pair's first meeting as the July 18 primary race heats up. Instead, Cox and two other Democratic candidates for governor fielded questions posed by journalists from Georgia's daily and weekly newspapers.

A spokesperson for Taylor said the candidate had not agreed to the GPA debate, but GPA officials said otherwise.

"Lt. Gov. Taylor promised to be with us, and at the last hour he withdrew his acceptance with no particular explanation," David Hudson, GPA's legal counsel and moderator of the debate, told the audience before introducing the candidates. "Let's don't feel bad about it. We understand he did the same thing to the Georgia Chamber of Commerce meeting in the last week or so. I don't know what the explanation is, but it's not anything we look on with great favor."

GPA President Randy Wind said the group extended the invitation several months ago, and reconfirmed it two weeks ago.

The GPA then got wind from a reporter late last week that Taylor was not coming, he said, and after trying to reach the candidate finally got a call from his campaign Wednesday confirming his absence.

"We naturally planned everything that he would be here," said Wind, who also is the editor of the Cairo Messenger newspaper.

A spokeswoman for Taylor's campaign said the lieutenant governor already had scheduled two Thursday fund-raisers in Atlanta, so he could not make the debate.

"We tried to rearrange it -- it just didn't work out," said Chrissy Ninon, Taylor's press secretary. Ninon said Taylor had never agreed to come to the Savannah debate but still is committed to three televised debates before the primary.

Taylor had a small lead over Cox in the most recently released poll, with a large number of Democrats still undecided. That tally was produced by Insider Advantage, an Atlanta-based political publication, earlier this month.

After the debate, Cox said Taylor owed it to voters to answer their questions. If Taylor avoided the showdown out of fear it could give a trailing candidate new footing, that would be a mistake, she said.

"A big mistake," she added.

Ninon, however, said that Cox "flip-flops so much, she could debate herself."

Taylor's empty seat did give Cox the chance to again outline her plans to tap the private sector for affordable health care and add more funding for education and farm-grown fuels as she cast herself as the best choice for a departure from "yesterday's brand" of Georgia politics.

Cox also further defined her stance on gay marriage, which some activists have accused her of switching sides on after a judge tossed out a 2004 referendum authorizing a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages. Cox in 2004 said the referendum was not needed.

But the issue needs to be resolved so that more pressing issues can be attended to, Cox said Thursday. If it takes a special legislative session to rewrite the amendment, that is what needs to be done to fully satisfy the Georgians who in 2004 voted overwhelmingly to support such a ban, she said.

She wants to give voters that choice, she said, even though she feels state law adequately addresses the matter.

The two other Democratic candidates, Marietta engineer Bill Bolton and former Alabama state Sen. Mac McCarley, enjoyed rare moments of attention during questions that were not fielded by Cox.

Bolton is running on a "back to capitalism" platform that advocates removing loopholes from the tax code. McCarley, who in the late 1960s was expelled and then later won readmittance to the Alabama Senate after becoming entangled in a bribery scandal, called for more benefits for military veterans.

McCarley, who said he was acquitted of criminal charges and won a civil lawsuit to clear his name, came to Macon and enlisted in the Navy when he was 15, he said.

Earlier in the day, Republican candidates for lieutenant governor -- former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed and Gainesville state Sen. Casey Cagle -- met in a debate, as did four Democratic candidates for that seat.

Gov. Sonny Perdue also spoke to the GPA during lunch, delivering a stump speech before heading to the waterfront outside the convention hotel to announce a new plan to manage salt water intrusion into the state's coastal drinking water sources.

To contact Matt Barnwell, call 923-3109, extension 307, or e-mail mbarnwell@macontel.com [mailto:mbarnwell@macontel.com].

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Macon Telegraph, Ga.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Macon Telegraph (Macon, Ga.)

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