ATTLEBORO - It appears voters will be denied a chance to size up the two Democratic candidates for state representatives in a debate before the Sept. 16 primary.
Spokesmen for the city cable television company and the Attleboro Democratic City Committee said Tuesday that their efforts to organize a debate between Democrats Kate Jackson and William Bowles have fallen through.
Paul Grady, chairman of the Democratic committee, and Michael Murphy of the cable company, both said they dropped plans for a debate when Jackson did not respond to their invitations.
Jackson, however, said she was willing to do the proposed cable debate, but not one sponsored by the Democratic committee.
She said her campaign manager was supposed to talk to the cable company.
Murphy said the cable company had not heard back from the Jackson campaign by Monday night's deadline.
"Bill Bowles agreed. Kate Jackson did not agree," he said.
He said the cable company will hold a debate Oct. 22 between the winner of the Democratic primary and Republican George Ross.
Grady said he played "telephone tag" with the Jackson campaign, but it never responded by the deadline. He said there is not enough time now to organize a debate.
Jackson said she did not want to participate in a debate hosted by the Democratic committee because many of its members openly support Bowles.
Bowles said he was disappointed and said the voters are the losers because they will not be able to judge the two Democratic candidates in a face-to-face debate.
He said he wanted a debate to test the ability of the candidates to think on their feet and answer questions about issues.
Bowles said his only condition was that he did not want the answers submitted to the candidates in advance so their advisers could write answers for them.
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