Four Windham County Senate candidates clashed over political forums in dueling letters this week.
An open letter by Jerry Levy and Aaron Diamondstone of the Liberty Union party, which appeared in the Brattleboro Reformer on Sept. 27, urged Democrats Jeanette White and Becca Balint to reconsider their decision not to attend an Oct. 14 forum, sponsored by Liberty Union.
The letter said their refusal “flies in the face of Vermont’s great tradition of candidates shaking hands and discussing crucial issues.”
The Democrats drafted a response Sept. 30, disputing the claims and insisting that they are willing to participate in a forum with the Liberty Union candidates, but not at a Liberty Union event.
The event in question is the Liberty Union Party’s Senate Candidate Forum at the American Legion in Brattleboro, with details “To Be Determined”, according to the party’s website as of Friday.
Incumbent Senator White said Levy first brought the idea of a co-sponsored event to a Windham County Democratic Party meeting. She said the party elected not to co-sponsor, nor attend, the event because it felt civic groups, rather than political parties, should sponsor candidate forums after the primaries, and because they had already committed to a different forum on the same night.
“It isn’t as if we’ve refused to go to any forums,” White said. “The Democrats at the county meeting decided that it would be inappropriate for individual parties to sponsor forums [for general elections]. That’s the role of civic groups.”
White and Balint, a first-time candidate, have accepted invitations to attend a forum in Brattleboro sponsored by the Worker’s Center on Oct. 14 and another sponsored by the Deerfield Valley Rotary and Deerfield Valley News in Dover on Oct. 22, events to which all the Windham County State Senate candidates have been invited.
White also believes there are important differences between a forum to discuss ideas and a candidate forum leading up to an election.
“[A candidate forum] is a chance for voters to decide who to vote for,” White said. “It isn’t necessarily a sharing of ideas. If we want to have a sharing of ideas, I’m perfectly willing to sit down and do it.”
Balint said the decision not to co-sponsor the event wasn’t made by her.
“It is … inaccurate to say that I ‘refused’ [the invitation],” Balint said in an email, “as I am not yet allowed to vote at the Democratic Party’s county meetings because I have not yet been elected to the Legislature.”
White, who is seeking a seventh term in the senate, received the most votes in the Democratic primary with more than 40 percent. Balint edged former Secretary of Agriculture Roger Albee with just under 30 percent. Levy and Diamondstone were unopposed. Independent Mary Hasson will also appear on the ballot in November.
Representatives of the Liberty Union Party did not respond to calls or emails for this report.
