Why is J.B. Pritzker ducking this debate?

Fifteen weeks ago, we offered the first of our 11 invitations to the campaign of J.B. Pritzker. Would he join Gov. Bruce Rauner and other candidates for governor in a spirited discussion with the Tribune Editorial Board?

We would host and livestream the session because voters by the thousands find that useful. Rank-and-file Illinoisans submit questions, including smart ones that previously haven’t been asked. We put some of those questions to the candidates.

Representatives of Republican Bruce Rauner, Conservative Sam McCann and Libertarian Kash Jackson agreed to meet. But the Pritzker campaign was mysteriously silent.

Pritzker has agreed to three more structured debates. Why wouldn’t he want a less formal give-and-take like the Tribune debate that he joined, and seemed to enjoy, before the March 20 primary? Illinois is a big state; we wondered if he’d be hundreds of miles away from Chicago on Friday, Sept. 14, the date we had worked out with other campaigns. No, it turns out Pritzker will be here in Chicago, before our 11 a.m. session, at a City Club event a mile away.

So what is Pritzker worried about? Maybe he thinks we’ll ask about the Tribune’s reporting on those embarrassing FBI recordings from 2008. Pritzker was hustling an appointment to statewide office from a corrupt Rod Blagojevich. As the two discussed which Democrat to stuff into which major office — no voters need participate — Pritzker evaluated black Illinois politicians from the “least offensive” to the “crass.”

Or maybe Pritzker is nervous about the Tribune investigation that found several offshore shell companies either wholly owned by J.B. Pritzker, his brother and business partner Anthony Pritzker, or that list other close associates as controlling executives. Recall that in March, after Pritzker’s campaign wouldn’t respond to inquiries about his finances, the Tribune sought out Pritzker at a campaign event at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He quickly summoned a campaign press aide to run interference and declined to discuss his offshore dealings.

You’d think that if any candidate for governor frets about a Tribune grilling, it’s Rauner. His editorial board debate here with fellow Republican Jeanne Ives was widely viewed as a disaster for him, and that primary race turned out to be much tighter than anyone anticipated.

Yet Rauner will come to the Tribune, and Pritzker will not. So, voters, you’re denied a chance to see them together in what we promise would be a vigorous affair.

Without the Democratic candidate, there’s no genuine debate to be had. So we’ll interview the other three candidates individually. At 11 a.m. Friday, we’ll livestream our interview with Rauner; you can link to it from chicagotribune.com.

And Pritzker? No candidate owes us anything, and we want it no other way. Each candidate for governor does, though, owe candor and honesty to the people of Illinois.

With his or her decision on whether to confront other candidates, each of them displays a regard — high or low — for Illinois voters. If you’re curious, we don’t recall another candidate for governor refusing to meet with opponents at the Tribune. Even Rod Blagojevich, who grew so angry with Tribune editorials that he’s on FBI wiretaps trying to get our editorial board fired, had the moxie to show up and gamely answer every question.

Next Friday, Gov. Rauner will take questions from us and, by extension, from Illinois voters. There’ll be a chair next to him.

Mr. Pritzker, if you, too, have the moxie, you still can claim it.