Jealous backs off veto of reporter
Democratic candidate had rejected Herald-Mail employee as debate panelist
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ben Jealous, in a late-night turnaround, has backed off his veto of a western Maryland newspaper’s statehouse reporter as a panelist for his sole debate with Republican Gov. Larry Hogan.
Jealous dropped his strike of Tamela Baker of The Herald-Mail of Hagerstown from the panel Tuesday night, just hours after The Baltimore Sun said it was reconsidering its participation in the questioning as a result of the veto.
Monday’s debate, sponsored by Maryland Public Television, is the only one the two campaigns agreed upon before the Nov. 6 election. Under the candidates’ agreement, either could reject participating news outlets’ choice of reporters to serve on the panel. Only the Jealous campaign chose to do so.
Kevin Harris, senior adviser to Jealous, issued a statement attempting to shift the blame for its widely criticized decision to the Hogan campaign and to the debate selection process it had previously agreed to.
“We regret the way the debate negotiations between our campaign and the Larry Hogan campaign have excluded news outlets and reporters, including Tamela Baker of The Hagerstown Herald-Mail, and our part in that process,” Harris said. “We want to be clear: the Jealous campaign does not have a problem with Tamela Baker being on the debate panel.”
The statement followed a day during which the Jealous campaign refused to explain its veto of Baker and declined to comment on The Sun’s warning it could drop its participation in the panel. With the latest comment, Harris reopened the debate over debates that had appeared to have ended with the two campaigns’ agreement on a single debate.
“We have a problem with the entire debate panel selection process, which was severely limited by the Hogan campaign’s unwillingness to simply participate in additional debates, as we originally put forward when we proposed five debates,” Harris said. “It is clear that reaching a good-faith agreement with our opponents is impossible, as they’d rather play politics than have an open process. Therefore, we will drop our veto and look forward to participating in next week’s debate.”
Hogan spokesman Doug Mayer mocked the Jealous campaign’s statement as a “completely illogical mess.”
“Whatever little credibility Ben Jealous still had, it quickly evaporated with this latest ridiculous statement trying to dodge accountability for first turning down multiple debate opportunities, then trying to maneuver around media outlets he didn’t want involved, and then vetoing reporters he doesn’t like,” Mayer said. “But if it means we can get on with the debate on Monday, then we’re happy.”
The Jealous campaign’s veto launched a news cycle in which it came under severe criticism from press advocates and ridicule on social media.
In addition to Baker, the panelists were expected to be Pamela Wood of The Sun, Ovetta Wiggins of The Washington Post and Ryan Eldredge of WMDT-TV in Salisbury.