Perry thinks you don't care about debate

By PEGGY FIKAC
HOUSTON CHRONICLE

AUSTIN — GOP Gov. Rick Perry seems to think you don’t much care that he’s skipping Tuesday night’s debate.

Make no mistake, Perry still blames Democrat Bill White for this Texas governor's race shaping up to be the first without a general election debate since 1990 (Perry said he wouldn't debate unless White released more income tax returns. White said that he had released enough and that Perry didn't get to set the ground rules).

But Perry recently went further. As my colleague R.G. Ratcliffe reported, Perry said voters aren't asking him to debate and that the panelists asking questions pose some queries that don't matter to Texans.

Perry's dour assessment came as a Rasmussen Reports national survey found 48 percent of likely U.S. voters said they had watched at least one debate this campaign season, but 45 percent hadn't. Forty-nine percent said political debates are informative, 36 percent called them useless and 16 percent are undecided.

Not quite a ringing endorsement of this eat-your-vegetables sort of campaign tradition.
But it's a higher percentage than the 33.64 percent of registered voters who turned out for the 2006 gubernatorial election (and higher than the 39 percent Perry got in a crowded field that year to win re-election).

Political scientists say debates are important because they give voters a chance to see the candidates think on their feet. You might not get out to a campaign rally, but you can turn on a debate and, just maybe, see something other than a canned message from a candidate.
You'll still get that opportunity Tuesday, just not from Perry.

White will appear along with Libertarian candidate Kathie Glass and Green Party candidate Deb Shafto. Watch the debate, which is being sponsored by media including the San Antonio Express-News/Houston Chronicle. And eat your vegetables.

(The debate will be live-streamed on chron.com. It also is airing live at 7 p.m. Tuesday on KUHT's digital channel 8.2 in Houston.)