RICHMOND--The first debate of the 2012 U.S. Senate race in battleground Virginia is set for December, with the front runners, Republican George Allen and Democrat Tim Kaine, confirmed
as participants.
The Dec. 7 debate will be part of Associated Press Day at the Capitol, an annual government and political news forum at the state Capitol hosted by the Virginia AP Managing Editors and the Virginia Capitol Correspondents Association.
Bob Gibson, a journalist and executive director of the nonpartisan Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia, will moderate the 90-minute debate.
Besides Allen and Kaine, eligible participants include declared candidates who average 15 percent or better in established and published non-candidate primary polls and have raised at least 20 percent as much money as their party's front runner by the end of October.
Virginia's 2012 election is among a handful of nationally significant contests.
If Allen can reclaim the seat he lost to Democrat Jim Webb by just 9,000 votes in a clumsy, gaffe-strewn 2006 re-election bid, that would be critical in helping the GOP regain the Senate majority it forfeited with Webb's victory. Webb will not seek a second term next year.
President Barack Obama, a close ally of Kaine's, clenched the White House in 2008 when he became the first Democrat to win Virginia in a presidential race since 1964. With the president's
popularity cratering in recent polls, it could tarnish the Democratic brand and force Kaine to swim against the current next fall.
Allen and Kaine are both former governors. Kaine served for two years as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
GOP candidates yet to meet debate criteria are tea party leader Jamie Radtke, Hampton Roads minister E.W. Jackson, businessman Tim Donner and lawyer David McCormick. Democrats yet to qualify are businessman Julien Modica and business consultant Courtney Lynch.
Radtke's campaign sent an e-mail to supporters urging them to contact debate organizers and protest what it called a mainstream media effort "to shut down conservative Virginians, saying: We
will pick your Senate candidates." Radtke's email also asks supporters to "make a statement through a donation to my campaign," noting a third-quarter fundraising deadline just 10 days off and a need for an additional $50,000. Radtke reported raising nearly $147,000 in her June 30 Federal Election Commission filing to Allen's $2.6 million.
December becomes the third time AP Day at the Capitol debates have raised the curtain on the campaigns for top statewide offices.
In 2004, Kaine and Republican Jerry Kilgore faced off in a contentious debate before a crowd of Associated Press member news organizations to open their 2005 gubernatorial campaign.
Four years later, Bob McDonnell was the lone Republican on a debate panel that included three Democrats who were then neck-and-neck for their party's gubernatorial nomination: former DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe, former Del. Brian Moran and state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, the eventual nominee who lost to McDonnell.
Also on the agenda for the Dec. 7 forum will be a luncheon address by McDonnell, a pro-and-con panel of experts and public officials discussing the proposal to allow uranium mining in Southside Virginia, and a hard look at the direction of state funding for public schools.
