Governors debate tonight

Indiana voters will have their first chance to see the candidates for governor face off tonight in the first of two scheduled gubernatorial debates. Democratic Gov. Joe Kernan, Republican challenger Mitch Daniels and Libertarian challenger Kenn Gividen will meet at 7 p.m. for a 90-minute radio and television debate from the campus of Franklin College.\nThe debate will be simulcast on public television and radio stations across the state. It will be broadcast live locally on WFIU-FM radio, and will be replayed for a 10 p.m. broadcast on Bloomington's PBS television channel WTIU. A live webcast will take place on www.wfyi.org.\nAll three campaigns express hope that the debates will allow them to connect with voters on the issues which will face the state in the next four years.\nTina Noel, spokeswoman for the Kernan campaign, said the governor will highlight the issues he's been focusing on since he assumed office a little more than a year ago, particularly "job growth and business development, affordable health care and education."\nBill Oesterle, Daniels' campaign manager, said Daniels plans to be very consistent with the issues he's addressed since he began campaigning, namely "the need to reverse Indiana's economic decline, the need to hang onto Indiana's best and brightest, and make state government more responsive and more effective and more accountable."\nGividen wants to focus on education reform, property tax abolition and his opposition to the I-69 extension proposal, said Sheri Conover Sharlow, communications director for the Libertarian candidate.\nJames Andrews, professor of communications and culture who focuses on political rhetoric, said debates such as tonight's can be advantageous for a candidate when everything goes smoothly. Ideally, a candidate wants to be clear, direct and relatively simple, he said, but often this over-simplicity sacrifices substance.\n"One of the problems with debates is they are not very nuanced," Andrews said. "They take very complicated issues and try to offer their solutions in the most simplified way possible, because they want to appear decisive and as if they have a solution."\nKernan's campaign staff has put together some background material on specific issues for the governor to look over prior to the debate, Noel said. However, she added that this information will only be supplemental to what Kernan has learned as he traveled throughout the state.\nOesterle said he believed to some degree the previous 15 months Daniels has spent traveling through all of Indiana's 92 counties functions as a nonstop preparation tour for the debates. Oesterle said the candidate has heard ideas and stories from voters and witnessed successes and failures.\nSharlow said Gividen's background as a pastor and his many appearances speaking publicly makes his campaign comfortable and confident about the debate. She said the campaign platform Gividen will take into the debate has been a product of much research and advice from libertarian economists.\nWhile the candidates play down exhaustive plans for the debates, Andrews said no candidate ever wants to do something inadvertent during a live broadcast, so remaining focused is a key aspect of any debate.\n"(Candidates) want to avoid stupid little things," Andrews said. "Because they're trying so hard to avoid the gaffe, the silly little thing people might focus on. It means they're going to be pretty scripted. They want to stay on message and they want to preserve the integrity of their image, who they are and what they do."\nAndrews said while the debates have the potential to greatly affect any given campaign, it's hard to know exactly how much they accomplish.\n"My own feeling is that with the debates themselves, an awful lot of people who watch the debates will be looking for reinforcement for the decision they've already made. Those who are really open to persuasion are a small percentage," he said.\nThe candidates are scheduled to meet once more for another debate Oct. 17 somewhere in southern Indiana, but the details have yet to be hammered out, the Kernan and Daniels campaigns said. Sharlow said she hopes Gividen will be allowed to participate in the second debate, but was unsure whether he has been invited.\n-- Contact senior writer Tony Sams at ajsams@indiana.edu.