Thune Accepts Newspaper's Lincoln-Douglas Challenge

Thune has accepted yesterday's Rapid City Journal challenge to debate Lincoln-Douglas style every week until the election:

THUNE ACCEPTS RAPID CITY JOURNAL WEEKLY “LINCOLN DOUGLAS” DEBATE CHALLENGE

SIOUX FALLS – South Dakota Republican Senate candidate John Thune said today he would accept weekly debates proposed by the Rapid City Journal with his opponent, Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle.

“A free wheeling debate in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas every week in a different South Dakota community would well serve the voters,” Thune said. “I accept this challenge and hope my opponent will as well.”

The Rapid City Journal called for the weekly debates in an editorial yesterday saying “we encourage Tom Daschle and John Thune to lead us there through a series of weekly debates between now and the election.”

“Further, we think the current format of debates-which are often just forums, where candidates respond to a series of fragmented questions from reporters or audience members, rather than squaring off against each other-should be thrown out. The Daschle-Thune debates should be fashioned, loosely after the historic series of debates between incumbent U.S. Sen. Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and his challenger, a political upstart named Abraham Lincoln. We like the idea of Sunday Night Debates, televised live on public television, with replays during the week. We think word would spread, people would watch, the public would be engaged,” the Rapid City Journal City said.

Daschle will not accept this challenge, naturally, because it would expose his record. Even though he says he wants to debate "the issues," in reality he's hiding behind a $15 million dollar image-shaping PR campaign. It's a disgrace to the democratic process.